I/O Psychology Research Briefing

Your 90-day snapshot of what's new in the field
📊 366 articles 🕐 Updated: August 30, 2026
Showing 366 articles
This Week
From peaks to plummets—linking sleep, effort, and absorption to trajectories of energetic activation during the day
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Journal of Business and Psychology Kirsten Handschuch, Oliver Weigelt, Richard Janzen, Corinna Peifer August 28, 2026
Research Methods Artificial Intelligence/Technology
Abstract This study examines daily energy trajectories at work from a temporal self-regulation perspective, addressing the paradoxical finding that effort can be both energizing and depleting. Rather than treating daily energy curves as purely descriptive, we distinguish three self-regulatory phases of energetic activation—resource mobilization, resource utilization, and resource retraction—and investigate sleep quality, effort, and absorption as phase-specific regulatory predictors. Using experience sampling data from 106 employees over 10 workdays, comprising four daily self-reports (2552 observations), we applied piecewise growth curve modeling to analyze within-person variations in energy trajectories. Our findings confirm an inverted U-shaped energy trajectory, peaking at midday. Sleep quality emerged as a key driver of the resource mobilization phase, associated with higher baseline energy levels but a flatter energy increase during the first half of the workday. During the resource utilization phase, higher noon effort was associated with a steeper decline in energetic activation over the work episode, independent of noon absorption. During the resource retraction phase, afternoon effort predicted a steeper evening decline, although this association did not persist once absorption was included. Effort and absorption also interacted in predicting evening energy trajectories, such that absorption differentiated evening declines primarily when effort was low, whereas differences were smaller under high effort. These results advance theoretical frameworks on energy regulation by identifying distinct mechanisms across daily phases and by showing that the energetic consequences of effort and absorption are temporally structured rather than uniform, becoming most visible after work.
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Changes in work-related boredom and their affective and behavioural consequences: the moderating role of job control
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Work & Stress Madelon L. M. van Hooff, Edwin A. J. van Hooft, Ilke Grosemans August 28, 2026
Research Methods Organizational Change Networks
Boredom is a common emotional experience at work and may therefore fluctuate over time. An important question is how employees respond to changes in work-related boredom. The present study therefore examined (1) if changes in work-related boredom relate to changes in depressed mood and frustration and if job control moderates these associations, and (2) if changes in those affective outcomes mediate the relationships between changes in work-related boredom and changes in procrastination and counterproductive work behaviour. We also explored whether these associations occur concurrently or lagged. Survey data were collected in a three-wave design with six weeks between waves (nt1 = 1018; nt2 = 750; nt3 = 547). Latent change scores analyses showed that changes in work-related boredom were positively associated with concurrent (but not lagged) changes in depressed mood and frustration, and that these relationships were weaker for higher levels of job control. Changes in depressed mood and frustration mediated the positive relationships between changes in work-related boredom and concurrent (but not lagged) changes in procrastination and counterproductive work behaviour. These findings show how changes in work-related boredom co-occur with changes in negative affect and work behaviour, and suggest that increases in boredom are accompanied by concurrent changes in these outcomes.
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The Digital Visibility‐Belonging Paradox: Digital Cohesion and Control in Contemporary Organizational Management
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Human Resource Management Miles M. Yang, Richard A. Hunt, Fang Lee Cooke, Ying Lu August 28, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Performance Networks Research Methods Training & Development
ABSTRACT Digital visibility has become a central organizing condition in digitally mediated work, reshaping how employees are recognized, evaluated, and connected. In this conceptual paper, we theorize digital visibility as a sociomaterial HRM condition that simultaneously enables recognition and generates performative pressures. Anchored in relational cohesion theory, we develop the Digital Visibility–Belonging Paradox concept to explain why the same visibility infrastructures that make employees more observable may also weaken the relational foundations of belonging. We distinguish between authentic belonging and simulated belonging to show how digital visibility can simultaneously support felt recognition and relational connection while encouraging employees to display connection, availability, and engagement through digitally visible cues. We further identify cognitive, emotional, and structural mechanisms through which visibility shapes these divergent trajectories, as well as organizational and system‐level boundary conditions that influence whether visibility supports relational connection or intensifies performative availability. The paper contributes to HRM scholarship by repositioning visibility governance as a relational and humanistic responsibility in digitally mediated work.
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When Managing Time Comes at a Cost: A Cross‐Role Resource Tradeoff Perspective on Team Temporal Leadership
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Jiaxin Xue, Jing-hao Zhang, Yuhui Li, Chenghao Men, Liying Bai, et al. August 26, 2026
Teams Leadership Performance Research Methods Health & Well-Being
ABSTRACT While team temporal leadership (TL) has been widely regarded as beneficial for team functioning, existing research has largely overlooked the potential resource costs underlying these benefits. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we conceptualize TL as a form of leader resource investment that may create a cross‐role resource tradeoff between leader costs and follower benefits. Using two multiwave, multisource field studies, we examine how TL shapes resource dynamics that ultimately influence the task performance of both leaders and followers. Study 1 indicates that TL increases leaders' emotional exhaustion while reducing followers' emotional exhaustion, thereby shaping their respective task performance. Moreover, the beneficial effects of TL on follower outcomes are stronger under higher team task complexity. To unpack this tradeoff, we further theorize mental effort and process clarity as two micromechanisms. Study 2 shows that team task complexity does not moderate the effect of TL on leaders' mental effort but strengthens the effect of TL on leaders' process clarity, with downstream implications for their emotional exhaustion and performance. Team task complexity also strengthens TL's effects in reducing followers' mental effort and enhancing their process clarity. Overall, these findings suggest that team task complexity primarily amplifies the benefits rather than the costs of TL, making TL a more favorable resource investment when team tasks are more complex. This study advances TL research by uncovering its underlying resource tradeoff and clarifying how it is shaped by cognitive processes and contextual demands.
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An analysis of quiet quitting from the perspective of psychological capital theory
Journal of Managerial Psychology Clara Bouchet, Virginie Gallego-Roquelaure August 26, 2026
Turnover & Retention Research Methods Performance Job Attitudes Selection & Assessment
Purpose This article aims to explore the phenomenon of quiet quitting in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by applying the theoretical framework of psychological capital, in order to better understand the psychological mechanisms underlying employees' altered engagement. Design/methodology/approach The research method is based on an exploratory qualitative study involving 24 interviews in French SMEs that had experienced at least one case of quiet quitting. Findings Two processes of quiet quitting were identified: a temporary or cyclical decline in engagement affecting optimism and hope but preserving self-efficacy and resilience; and de facto quiet quitting resulting from deterioration in optimism and hope, followed by self-efficacy and resilience. Practical implications By leveraging insights from psychological capital theory, this study offers practical guidance for managers and employees in SMEs to recognise early signs of quiet quitting and implement proactive strategies to mitigate its potentially detrimental effects on individual and organisational performance. Originality/value By drawing on psychological capital theory and four resources – hope, self-efficacy, resilience and optimism – the authors shed light on a little explored phenomenon found in SMEs: quiet quitting. Given the specific characteristics of SMEs, the authors highlight two processes, thereby improving our understanding of this phenomenon.
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Is general mental ability still the best predictor of job performance? Integrating contemporary meta-analytic evidence
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Journal of Business and Psychology Saron Demeke, Paul R. Sackett, Christopher D. Nye, Yujia Li, Nathan R. Kuncel August 25, 2026
Performance Individual Differences Measurement & Psychometrics Research Methods Networks
Abstract For decades, general mental ability (GMA) has been described as the single best predictor of job performance, with meta-analyses suggesting corrected validities near .50. This conclusion has been recently challenged on two fronts: methodologically, with arguments that earlier research applied overly liberal range restriction corrections (Sackett et al., 2022), and more foundationally, with the recognition that evidence largely relied on data collected prior to 1980 (Sackett et al., 2024). Three recent meta-analyses, covering studies between 1990 and 2022, report lower estimates of the GMA-job performance relationship between .16 and .23 (Nye et al., 2022; Sackett et al., 2024; Steel & Fariborzi, 2024). These meta-analyses overlap somewhat, but each also included unique studies not examined in the other papers. To produce comprehensive estimates of this relationship, we obtained all three datasets and conducted new meta-analyses on all available studies. Across multiple analyses, the mean operational validity of GMA for overall job performance falls in the .18–.22 range (total k = 212; N = 109,396). Moderator analyses examining whether O*NET-derived job complexity dimensions (i.e., “Data,” “People,” and “Things”) account for variability in estimates indicated little relationship between Data (cognitive complexity) or People (interpersonal) and validity, a positive relationship for Things (manual), and higher validity in jobs combining greater Data and Things, challenging the traditional view that GMA is most predictive in jobs that are high on cognitive complexity alone. We offer .20 as a summary estimate of the contemporary GMA-job performance relationship and recommend reporting modern findings separately from older data.
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Rejected Applicant Reactions to Artificial Intelligence/Human Manager‐Based Recruitment
Human Resource Management Lingjun Zhou, Jinsong Li, Jie Cao August 25, 2026
Selection & Assessment Artificial Intelligence/Technology Individual Differences Leadership Organizational Change
ABSTRACT The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in job recruitment has transformed recruitment practices. Little is known, however, about how applicants react to AI‐based rejection. Drawing on appraisal theory, we propose that applicants rejected by AI tend to appraise the rejection as others' responsibility, leading to negative emotions and adverse reactions against the organization. Using a person‐centered approach and mixed‐methods design in two studies, we identify four distinct profiles based on the combination of outward‐focused negative emotions (OFNE) and inward‐focused negative emotions (IFNE). Specifically, we argue and test that introducing a human manager to review AI‐based rejection can soothe rejected applicants. Our findings show that involving human touch can shift applicants' profiles, leading to better reactions toward the organization. Theoretical and practical implications for rejected applicant reactions in the context of AI‐based recruitment processes are discussed.
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A Process Model of Managerial Phronesis in the Age of Generative AI
Academy of Management Review Dirk Lindebaum, Natarajan Balasubramanian, Mehreen Ashraf, Patrick Haack August 25, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Training & Development Individual Differences
Managerial phronesis involves first-hand experience that helps managers make moral and context-specific judgments at work in pursuit of the common good. Yet, as managers increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) at work, many of these first-hand experiences are replaced by synthetic outputs. While past research has investigated how human–AI interactions alter managerial agency, we do not know why, how, and under which conditions GenAI affects the development of managerial phronesis. Answering these questions is important because phronesis underpins much of knowledge use in organizations. Consequently, we develop a baseline model that advances our understanding of how phronesis emerges in the absence of GenAI, introducing conceptual innovations that explain how new experiences are generated. We then extend this model by explaining why and how GenAI shapes the development of phronesis. Specifically, we theorize how GenAI can shift the development of phronesis toward what we term epistemic de-skilling, when conditions of perceived time pressure prompt cognitive offloading of tasks, and toward epistemic up-skilling, when conditions of accountability activate managerial reflexivity. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our model, and articulate an agenda for future research.
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Regulatory Balancing Acts: Lobbying and Medical Device Approval
Organization Science Jake B. Grandy, Joel Andrus, Zhe Xing, Jieun Lee August 25, 2026
Performance Health & Well-Being Training & Development Job Attitudes Social Responsibility
Lobbying is one of the primary nonmarket strategies firms use to shape regulatory outcomes, yet it is often treated as either an informational input that helps regulators make better decisions or a distortionary influence that undermines bureaucratic judgment. We develop a reputation-based theory of how regulators interpret lobbying under uncertainty. Because agencies are evaluated for both acting too quickly and acting too slowly, regulators use discretion over decision time to manage reputational risk. From this perspective, lobbying matters less as persuasion and more as sustained engagement that affects regulators’ confidence that foreseeable risks have been identified and addressed. We argue that the effects of lobbying depend on firm-level reputational cues that influence how regulators interpret lobbying activity, ultimately affecting the speed at which agencies grant regulatory approval. Using a novel dataset of FDA medical device approvals from 2002 to 2021, we find that lobbying is associated with faster approval on average. However, following product recalls this effect can reverse, suggesting that regulators treat interaction as misplaced confidence and increase scrutiny to reduce exposure to decisions that may become reputationally costly. By contrast, innovation reputation signals strengthen the approval-accelerating effect of lobbying by making timely approval more defensible to external audiences. Our theory suggests that the success of lobbying depends on how regulators interpret it in light of firm reputational cues, providing a reputation-based explanation for prior mixed findings on lobbying effectiveness.
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Why Organizations Resist Change: A Multilevel Model of Human, Systemic, and Causal Constraints
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Organizational Psychology Review Lorne M. Hartman August 25, 2026
Organizational Change Research Methods Organizational Culture Social Responsibility Performance
Organizational change has long been understood as a problem of human resistance, often attributed to self-interest, misunderstanding, or low tolerance for uncertainty. Yet such explanations remain superficial, describing the symptoms of resistance rather than its sources. This paper argues that resistance to change is not merely psychological or cultural, but a manifestation of deeper constraints embedded in human cognition, organizational systems, and the structure of causality itself. Drawing on insights from cognitive neuroscience, systems theory, and complexity science, a multilevel framework is proposed to explain why change is inherently difficult to implement and sustain. At the human level, neurocognitive mechanisms such as loss aversion and synaptic strength bias individuals toward familiar routines. At the organizational level, systems principles such as homeostasis and free-energy minimization drive collective structures to preserve predictability and stability. At the causal level, the nonlinear dynamics of complex systems render cause-and-effect relationships opaque, making effective intervention uncertain. Together, these forces create a deep architecture of resistance that persists despite managerial effort or strategic intent. The paper concludes by discussing implications for theory and practice, suggesting that effective change requires designing interventions that align with, rather than oppose, these intrinsic constraints.
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Intervention outcomes in practice: an exploratory study of natural organisational intervention case studies
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Work & Stress Kevin Teoh, Rashpal Dhensa-Kahlon, Marit Christensen, Karina Nielsen August 24, 2026
Organizational Change Performance Training & Development Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being
Natural interventions take place without input from external researchers and practitioners. A better representation of this data source advances the literature on the outcomes that require change as perceived by employees and organisations. We draw on this data source by reviewing 19 natural organisational interventions from the English and Welsh National Health Service to examine the outcomes employees and organisations seek to change. Drawing on these interventions, which seek to improve how work is designed, organised, and managed, we propose a scaffold of outcomes that seeks to capture the interdependencies between outcomes. Where proximal resources (Learning and Decent Work) provide the basis for distal outcomes (Wellbeing, Performance, and Workforce), rather than treating wellbeing and performance as isolated endpoints, we postulate that multiple outcomes function as interdependent resources that build organisational change capability over time through virtuous gain spirals. From an empirical perspective, we highlight the distinction between proximal shifts and distal impacts, with implications for how success is measured across multiple levels. This work demonstrates the need to engage and align internal stakeholders, all the while ensuring that intervention outcomes reflect actual internal organisation needs, and that interventions are not dominated by the perspectives of researchers and the research literature.
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Effort–reward imbalance at work and home: Longitudinal research with continuous time modeling.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Eunae Cho, Laurenz L. Meier, Yu-Chi Lin August 24, 2026
Research Methods Performance Health & Well-Being Networks Social Responsibility
= 937)-to examine Work and Home ERI as dynamic constructs. Based on the ERI theory, we hypothesized significant within-person, within-domain relationships between ERI and well-being (exhaustion) and performance (job and family performance) outcomes. We also explored cross-domain relationships between Work/Home ERI and home/work outcomes. Data were analyzed using random-intercept cross-lagged panel models with continuous time structural equation modeling. Contrary to hypotheses, the lagged effects of Work and Home ERI on most outcomes were not significant, both within and across domains, which was largely consistent across the two studies. In light of the extant literature, our results suggest that ERI may function primarily as a chronic rather than acute stressor, with well-being and functional consequences emerging only after sustained exposure. In sum, our research calls for further investigation to better understand when and how ERI becomes detrimental. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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A Commentary on Schertler et al. (2026): The Ambivalent Visibility of Remote Inclusion
Group & Organization Management Deniz Tunçalp August 24, 2026
Diversity & Inclusion Remote Work Teams Performance Job Design
Schertler et al. find that remote work intensity predicts lower belongingness, buffered by leaders' virtual collaboration behaviors, but find no comparable effects for authenticity. This commentary argues that this divergence reflects distinct mechanisms: belongingness depends on interactional density, while authenticity depends on identity discretion. Drawing on hybrid surveillance theory, it contends that virtual collaboration is ambivalent, capable of fostering recognition while also intensifying visibility and control. Remote inclusion should therefore be theorized as the governance of visibility, autonomy, and recognition, not simply the transmission of inclusionary cues.
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Pursuing Leadership on One's Own Terms: A Human Resource Development Perspective on Leadership Aspiration, Identity, and Organizational Influence
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Human Resource Development Quarterly Bishakha Mazumdar, Stephanie Gilbert, Megan M. Walsh August 24, 2026
Training & Development Leadership Diversity & Inclusion HR Systems & Talent Management Performance
ABSTRACT Leadership aspiration is not simply a product of ambition or capability, but a dynamic, context‐sensitive phenomenon shaped by how individuals understand leadership and whether pursuing it feels feasible, meaningful, and sustainable. Using phenomenographic analysis of semi‐structured interviews with 23 employees and drawing on Leadership Identity Development Theory and Social Cognitive Career Theory, we identified four themes shaping aspiration: leadership conceptualization, self‐efficacy and identity, outcome expectations, and contextual enablers and constraints. These themes constitute an outcome space mapping the qualitatively distinct ways leadership aspiration is experienced and structured. A central finding is that what may appear as withdrawal or career plateauing often reflects intentional recalibration—an agentic renegotiation of the scope and conditions of leadership pursuit in response to contextual realities and identity alignment. Human resource development practitioners should foster inclusive messaging, flexible development opportunities, and relational supports that accommodate the diverse ways individuals navigate leadership aspiration.
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Last 90 Days
Gender Similarity in Hierarchical Work Relationships: A Meta‐Analysis
Journal of Organizational Behavior Caitlin M. Porter, Cassondra Batz-Barbarich, Nicole Alonso, Feigu Zhou August 23, 2026
Networks Diversity & Inclusion Research Methods Performance Training & Development
ABSTRACT Hierarchical work relationships, such as mentoring and supervisor relationships, provide access to key resources that promote employee well‐being and effectiveness. As such, scholars have investigated factors that enable relational success, with gender similarity being a key consideration. Despite abundant theoretical explanations for the importance of gender similarity in promoting high‐quality relationships and improved work outcomes, the empirical evidence is inconclusive. To add conceptual and empirical clarity to this literature, we meta‐analytically summarize the associations between gender similarity and a range of interpersonal (i.e., perceived similarity, relationship quality, and support) and work outcomes (i.e., work attitudes, performance, and turnover intentions). Moreover, we draw from social identity theory, as a basis for understanding when—or for whom—gender similarity in hierarchical work relationships is beneficial. Findings reveal that gender similarity promotes perceived similarity and relationship quality, but not work‐related outcomes. Moreover, junior women report higher perceived similarity and support in gender similar dyads than men. Finally, junior men report higher relationship quality in gender similar dyads, whereas junior women report comparable relationship quality across gender similar and dissimilar dyads. We discuss the implications for gender similarity and managing hierarchical work relationships.
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“Menopausal, Depleted, and Nostalgic”: The Bittersweet Effects of Menopause for Women Leaders
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Olga Epitropaki, Maria Kakarika August 23, 2026
Leadership Performance Training & Development Health & Well-Being Research Methods
ABSTRACT Menopause is a natural but underexamined female experience in work settings, with significant implications for women in leadership positions. Drawing on self‐regulation perspectives, we develop a conceptual model examining how menopausal symptom severity shapes women leaders' experiences at work. We propose that severe menopausal symptoms act as a regulatory stressor that depletes leaders' psychological resources, triggering nostalgia for a premenopausal self. Nostalgia, in turn, can give rise to dual regulatory responses, enhancing empathy for subordinates on the one hand and fostering psychological withdrawal on the other. In Study 1 ( N = 341), using critical incidents, we found that menopausal symptom severity increased leader empathy and psychological withdrawal through a serial mediation of depletion and nostalgia. Study 2, employing a causal chain experiment with novel manipulations, supported the positive effects of (a) menopause severity on depletion (Study 2a, N = 203), (b) depletion on nostalgia (Study 2b, N = 132), and (c) nostalgia on empathy but not on psychological withdrawal (Study 2c, N = 115). We discuss implications for understanding women leaders' health and bodily experiences at work.
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Book Review: Lori Rosenkopf. Unstoppable Entrepreneurs: 7 Paths for Unleashing Successful Startups and Creating Value Through Innovation RosenkopfLori. Unstoppable Entrepreneurs: 7 Paths for Unleashing Successful Startups and Creating Value Through Innovation. Wharton School Press, 2025. 144 pp.
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Administrative Science Quarterly Thomas Eisenmann August 22, 2026
Organizational Culture Training & Development Job Attitudes Individual Differences Health & Well-Being
Lori Rosenkopf's Unstoppable Entrepreneurs surveys seven entrepreneurial paths-Disruptor, Bootstrapper, Social Entrepreneur, Technology Commercializer, Funder, Acquirer, and Intrapreneur-each anchored in the story of a Wharton-affiliated entrepreneur.The book's conceptual spine is Rosenkopf's "Six Rs" framework (p.4), her list of defining attributes of the entrepreneurial mindset: Reason, Recombination, Relationships, Resources, Resilience, and Results.By profiling different types of entrepreneurs, Rosenkopf widens the image of who can be an entrepreneur beyond the venture capital-backed tech bro stereotype.Giving equal billing to bootstrapping, social enterprise, entrepreneurship through acquisition, and intrapreneurship expands options for individuals deciding whether to become entrepreneurs, which seems to be the book's primary audience.Also, for prospective founders, the Six Rs provide a useful mnemonic: Do they have a compelling Reason, strong Relationships, adequate Resilience, etc.? Finally, the book's case studies provide relatable role models for aspiring entrepreneurs.Readers will value the featured founders' candor.For example, one admits to having "tons of self-doubt, tons of fear" (p.20).The book's accounts of setbacks and how founders addressed them can help prepare someone who hasn't yet experienced entrepreneurship's emotional roller coaster.Unstoppable Entrepreneurs could be a good addition to an introductory entrepreneurship course syllabus.However, the book should not serve as the sole source of decision support for students asking, "Should I do this now?"A prospective entrepreneur needs both inspiration and information regarding downside risks.Entrepreneurial failure rates are very high-90 percent in one study that Rosenkopf cites.While Unstoppable Entrepreneurs spotlights founders' struggles, in the end each of the book's protagonists is successful.By contrast, failure is final for most entrepreneurs, and the consequences can be severe: deep psychological pain, personal finances in disarray, strained relationships, and stigmatization in some cultures.Rosenkopf does not position Unstoppable Entrepreneurs as a contribution to academic theory.Even so, for scholars, the book sparks several research questions.Its case studies emphasize the positive aspects of resilience.However, the confidence and optimism that underpin resilience can, in excess, yield maladaptive behavior, in particular the escalation of commitment when pivoting or shutting down a venture would be a better choice.Using Rosenkopf's typology of entrepreneurs and her Six R framework, one could explore the potential dark side of resilience: Are different types of entrepreneurs more vulnerable?How do the other Rs interact with resilience?Another possible research topic relates to the role of institutional privilege in entrepreneurial success.Rosenkopf acknowledges that the Wharton-affiliated entrepreneurs she profiles benefited from the school's prestige and access to its accomplished alumni.That observation suggests
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The Connectivity Paradox of Flexible Team Arrangements
Academy of Management Journal Stefan Berger, Hendrik J. Van de Brake, Heike Bruch, Gerben S. van der Vegt August 21, 2026
Teams Networks Training & Development Performance Selection & Assessment
Organizations rely on team-based structures to promote connectivity and performance. Yet, recent research suggests that increasingly flexible team arrangements, characterized by multiple team membership (MTM) and fluid team membership (FTM), may simultaneously foster and undermine social capital in organizations. To address this connectivity paradox of flexible team arrangements, we integrate research on MTM and FTM and develop multilevel theory linking these practices to social capital and performance at the firm and individual levels. We test our theory in two complementary studies. Study 1 uses fine-grained data from a knowledge-intensive organization (n = 3,690 employees) to examine our individual-level predictions. Study 2 tests the full model with multi-source data from 106 organizations (n = 15,342 employees). Across both studies, MTM is positively related to individual social capital and indirectly to individual performance, whereas FTM shows negative associations. Study 2 further shows that flexible team arrangements (i.e., firm-level structures based on MTM and FTM) are related positively to organizational social capital and indirectly to firm performance. Our findings contribute to research on teams in general and flexible team arrangements in particular, and hold important implications for social capital theory.
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Social Performance Feedback and Managerial Moral Self-Regulation: The Microfoundations of Corporate Social (Ir)Responsibility
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Organization Science Benjamin Perkins, Yilin Liu, Songcui Hu, Cuili Qian, Sarah Doyle August 21, 2026
Performance Training & Development Research Methods Social Responsibility Turnover & Retention
Despite growing interest in the microfoundations of corporate social activities, prior research has not articulated the full chain connecting firm-level conditions to managers' psychological processes (a topdown pathway) and back to firm-level corporate social behavior (a bottom-up pathway), leaving existing microfoundational accounts incomplete. Drawing on the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) and moral self-regulation theory, we develop a cross-level moral feedback model that integrates both pathways by linking firm-level social performance feedback, individual-level managerial cognition, and firm-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We argue that social performance feedback activates managers' moral self-regulation. When a firm falls below its social performance aspiration, its managers perceive a diminished firm image, which undermines their moral self-image and triggers moral cleansing behaviors-manifested as increased CSR and/or reduced CSI. Conversely, when a firm exceeds its social performance aspiration, its managers perceive an enhanced firm image, which elevates their moral self-image and activates moral licensing behaviors-manifested as reduced CSR and/or increased CSI. Study 1, using archival data, examines the main effects of firms' social performance feedback on CSR and CSI. Study 2 uses a series of experiments to examine the proposed micro-level mechanisms, demonstrating how managers' perceived firm image and moral selfimage sequentially mediate the effects of social performance feedback on CSR and CSI. These studies provide complementary evidence for our multilevel behavioral model. Our study contributes to research on the microfoundations of corporate social activities, behavioral strategy, and moral self-regulation.
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Survival of the Flattest: Teams with Low (But Not High) Status Differentiation Turn Failure into Success by Adding High-Status Members
Organization Science Yufei Zhong, Huisi Li, Xirong Shen, Nicholas A. Hays, Jizhen Li August 21, 2026
Teams Performance Training & Development Networks Selection & Assessment
Most prior research on teams’ responses to failure treats teams as closed systems. However, after failures, teams may seek to improve performance by bringing in new members. Adopting a teams-as-open-systems perspective, we test which teams are more willing to add high-status members following failures and whether doing so improves team performance. Drawing on status hierarchy research, we posit that after a team failure, members will feel uncertain about their own status (particularly those with high status). More importantly, we predict that the impact of this status uncertainty on members’ willingness to add high-status new members depends on teams’ pre-existing status differentiation. Specifically, status uncertainty leads members in low-status-differentiation teams to perceive adding a high-status new member as a potential benefit to collective performance, whereas it leads members in high-status-differentiation teams to perceive the addition as a potential threat to their own status. We theorize that these individual perceptions shape teams’ collective decisions through an emergent process. Taken together, we predict that, at the team level, failure will increase the willingness to add high-status members in teams with low, but not high, status differentiation, and such addition improves subsequent team performance. Using longitudinal archival data on product development teams (Study 1, N = 4,811 teams) and two pre-registered experiments at the individual (Study 2, N = 783 participants) and team levels (Study 3, N = 222 teams), we found support for these predictions. This research advances the literature on team failure and illuminates dynamics between membership change and social hierarchy.
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Can Task Motivation Backfire? The Roles of Perceived Task Interdependence and Interaction Avoidance
Organization Science Dan Ni, Hansen Zhou, Xin Qin, Jie Zhong, Xiaoming Zheng August 21, 2026
Motivation Performance Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being Leadership
The extant literature on task motivation has generally demonstrated its beneficial effects on workplace outcomes. Although some evidence has raised concerns about the potential link between task motivation and maladaptive behaviors, this line of work has been grounded in an intrapersonal perspective that focuses on employees’ internal regulation. Guided by motivated information processing theory, we adopt an interpersonal perspective to examine how task motivation may, under certain conditions, lead to interaction avoidance, a maladaptive workplace behavior with downstream implications for job performance. We theorize that, when perceiving a lower level of task interdependence, employees with higher task motivation are more likely to engage in interaction avoidance. This avoidance, in turn, is negatively related to job performance. Across an online experiment with a U.S. sample, a field experiment with a Chinese sample, and a survey with a Chinese sample, our hypotheses are supported. This research builds a more balanced understanding of how task motivation influences employee behavior and performance. In practice, managers should actively channel the effort of highly task-motivated employees to ensure their motivation translates into effectiveness rather than counterproductive avoidance.
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Repatterning Interactions in Remote Work Environments: Bolstering Psychological Safety Through Mutually Humanizing Self-Disclosure
Organization Science Vanessa Conzon August 21, 2026
Remote Work Health & Well-Being Training & Development Job Attitudes Teams
Existing research on psychological safety suggests that remote work might make it more challenging for workers to engage in the sorts of interactions that promote psychological safety. This raises the question: How is psychological safety bolstered when groups work remotely? Drawing on data from a 7-year longitudinal qualitative study—including 275 interviews and approximately 330 hours of observations—of a professional services organization that shifted from an in-person to a remote work environment, I present a process model of how psychological safety can be strengthened among workers interacting virtually. I find that remote work supports interactional patterns that facilitate self-disclosure among group members. Learning more about one another, workers become mutually humanized, and psychological safety is bolstered. This psychological safety is accompanied by a set of associated practices that help people coordinate on work tasks while also sustaining flexibility in where and when they work. Reflecting improved psychological safety and associated practices, group members attend to and accomplish both work tasks and nonwork activities. This study contributes to the psychological safety literature by identifying a distinct process through which psychological safety can be promoted in remote work environments: mutual humanization via self-disclosure, which is supported through interactional patterns facilitated by remote work. Importantly, this distinct group-initiated process expands theorization beyond its current focus on leader-initiated social learning. This study also identifies how psychological safety supports role management, integrating theories of psychological safety and work-nonwork roles to expand understanding of psychological safety’s positive consequences.
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Dominant Deceptions: How Future-Oriented Narratives Transform into Deception
Organization Science Tiona ŽuŞul, Aharon Cohen Mohliver August 21, 2026
Organizational Change Training & Development Job Attitudes Social Responsibility Research Methods
Drawing on a multi-year, qualitative study of a promising venture in a nascent industry, we develop a process model tracing how future-oriented narratives can transform into deception. In the venture we studied, the founder’s future-oriented narratives were initially viewed as evidence of his visionary foresight. As these narratives traveled downward through the organization, employees responsible for operations translated the founder’s broad vision into specific targets and metrics. Some details described an attainable future; others reached so far beyond the attainable that they became liminal, occupying a grey zone between right and wrong. Over time, growing internal and external demands for tangible progress created an expectations-reality gap, prompting employees to engage in temporal reorientation, shifting statements from “we will” to “we have.” Their statements crossed from liminal to deceptive, now asserting as fact something that did not exist. Once formalized in presentations, websites, and other artefacts, the claims became dominant deceptions: codified, specific, past- or present-tense deceptions deliberately reproduced across the organization. In this codified form, the deceptions became misconduct that, if detected, could have been acted on by social control agents. We propose that three enabling conditions sustained this transformation: visionary attribution (belief in the founder’s unique foresight), interpretive flexibility (the ambiguity of new technologies that allows multiple plausible meanings), and moral justification (the framing of deception as serving a higher mission). Because the process unfolded diffusely and incrementally, the transformation could only be observed retrospectively, in the accumulation of actions across individuals, artefacts, and time. By tracing this process, we extend research in narratives and in organizational misconduct.
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Corrigendum: Agreeable team members wanted: personality configurations of high-performing individuals in global virtual teams
Journal of Managerial Psychology August 21, 2026
Teams Individual Differences
It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article Şahin F, Çetin F, Askun D, Tavoletti E, Taras V, Florea L (2026), “Agreeable team members wanted: personality configurations of high-performing individuals in global virtual teams”. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. Link to the DOI, was published with the incorrect affiliation for author Duysal Askun.Duysal Askun’s affiliation was incorrectly listed as “Jones School of Business, Rice University” and has now been corrected to “Department of Psychology, Istanbul Topkapi University”.The publisher asks that affiliation information be entered correctly at submission and confirmed at article proofing stage.
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Back to the Beginning: Rediscovering a Beginner’s Mind Enhances Advice Provision to Novices
Academy of Management Journal Ting Zhang August 20, 2026
Training & Development Selection & Assessment Individual Differences Organizational Culture Artificial Intelligence/Technology
People often seek advice from those with more expertise. However, expertise can create a barrier to providing useful advice as it limits advisers’ ability to communicate concretely, yielding advice that may fall short of its potential value. In this paper, I examine how rediscovering a beginner’s mind—defined as a process of experiencing one’s former novice state of development in a focal domain—enables advisers to give more useful advice to novices. Because every adviser was once a novice, this former self can be a valuable resource when giving advice. Building on construal theory, I test whether rediscovering a beginner’s mind helps advisers communicate more concretely, generating advice that novices view as more useful and worthy of adoption. Across three main studies featuring managers and musicians, including one correlational study and two experiments (with 656 advisers and 571 advisees, generating 3,762 unique pairs), I find the predicted patterns and demonstrate how rediscovering a beginner’s mind operates beyond recalling past experiences or learning new skills more generally. I discuss how these findings contribute to our understanding of how advisers can be better equipped to provide developmental advice.
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How Followers Respond to Leader Differentiation: The Importance of Considering All Leader Differentiation Properties
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Journal of Management Yuchuan Liu, Gary J. Greguras August 20, 2026
Leadership Training & Development Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance
A central tenet of many leadership theories is that leaders treat their followers differently. Although leader differentiation is ubiquitous, its effects on leaders and followers are not well understood and theory and research have not simultaneously considered its three key properties: Leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation, LMX quality, and LMX social comparison. We developed a theoretical model in which these three properties interact to influence followers’ supervisory interactional justice perceptions and subsequently their supervisor-directed deviance and supervisor-directed organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). To test our model, we conducted a pre-registered experiment (Study 1), a single-level, multi-wave study (Study 2), and a multilevel, multi-wave, multisource study (Study 3). Results consistently supported our theoretical model. First, LMX differentiation indirectly influenced supervisor-directed deviance and OCBs via supervisory interactional justice. Second, the three leader differentiation properties interacted to predict supervisory interactional justice. Specifically, when LMX quality and LMX social comparison were both high, the negative impact of LMX differentiation on followers’ supervisory interactional justice perceptions was the weakest and did not reliably differ from zero. Third, when LMX quality and LMX social comparison were both high, LMX differentiation’s positive indirect effect on supervisor-directed deviance, and its negative indirect effect on supervisor-directed OCBs, via supervisory interactional justice perceptions, were the weakest and not reliably different from zero. These are among the first studies to simultaneously theorize and investigate the interactive effects of the three central properties of leader differentiation, and to demonstrate its effects for both followers and leaders.
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Countering Organizational Rigidity Through Operational Resource Bundling: Integrating Resource Orchestration and Dynamic Capabilities
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Journal of Management Catherine Collins, Cristina B. Gibson, Martijn van der Kamp August 20, 2026
Training & Development Teams Selection & Assessment Performance Health & Well-Being
As organizations mature, standardized systems help meet increasing needs for efficiency. However, this often results in resources being used in rigid ways, compromising the flexibility necessary to leverage opportunities, create value, and address customers’ emerging needs. Here we address solutions to this drift to rigidity, focusing on how operational managers bundle resources to create value for the firm. Our qualitative study is based on data collected from an organization with operations across 252 locations. This data consists of 92 interviews with strategic and operational managers, ethnographic observations, and archival records. We uncovered three pathways for resource bundling that are focused on markets, customers, or organizational renewal. In each, senior-level strategic managers initially provided resources, including channels for standardization, information systems, and technical infrastructure that became rigid in their usage. When operational managers sensed this drift to rigidity, they seized flexible resources (connection, solution development, and employee development processes) to combine with the rigid resources. We refer to this as Operational Resource Bundling (ORB). Strategic managers collaborated with the operational managers to adapt how resources were used, helping to ratify, endorse, and mobilize the bundles to achieve value creation and competitive advantage. We extend earlier work by specifying how a particular type of resource orchestration—ORB—constitutes a value-generating micro-mechanism of dynamic capabilities. ORB uncovers the role of operational managers in balancing standardization versus customization through identifying and combining resources.
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Old Theories, New Teams: Advancing Team Adaptation Theory for Human-Autonomy-Teams
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Organizational Psychology Review Tilman Nols, Anna‐Sophie Ulfert, Josette Gevers August 20, 2026
Teams Training & Development Performance Individual Differences Networks
Human–Autonomy Teams (HATs), composed of humans and agents such as artificial intelligence, face distinctive challenges in dynamic environments. As a result, they often struggle to adapt effectively, limiting their potential. Traditional team theories do not fully capture the unique characteristics of HATs, and research remains fragmented across disciplines, offering limited theoretical and practical guidance. Consequently, we propose a holistic framework that integrates the dynamic interplay between team members, tasks, and the environment. Drawing on multidisciplinary insights, we identify four key conditions—predictability, observability, plannability, and directability—that govern how HATs respond to shifting interdependencies. For each condition, we advance testable propositions, illustrate their relevance through established HAT testbeds, and outline technical, organizational, and interactional strategies to foster their emergence. Finally, we discuss how the framework provides a conceptual foundation to guide future research, training, and the design of adaptive HATs, by reflecting on its broader theoretical and practical implications.
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The Process Model of Anxiety: A Framework and Review of Anxiety in the Workplace
Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior John P. Trougakos, Daniel J. Beal, Milad Moghaddas August 20, 2026
Health & Well-Being Performance Networks Research Methods
Anxiety is an extremely common and consequential affective experience in organizational life, yet workplace anxiety research remains fragmented across theories, methods, and domains. In this review, we argue that anxiety is best understood not as a static or uniformly maladaptive state but as a dynamic process with identifiable stages. To organize research on workplace anxiety, we introduce the process model of anxiety (PMA), which specifies appraisal, activation, processing, fatigue, and behavior stages, while emphasizing feedback, regulation, recovery, and the role of contextual factors in modulating the process. We integrate research from organizational psychology, affective science, stress, cognition, and health to explain when anxiety undermines performance, well-being, and relationships, and when it may support vigilance, preparation, safety, or compensatory action. We conclude by identifying future directions for dynamic, multilevel, and intervention-oriented research on anxiety in organizations.
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It is all in the family: Understanding how and when family-work facilitation affects successful aging at work.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Guodong Cui, Zhiyu Xie, B.I.J.M. van der Heijden, Meng Song August 20, 2026
Networks Research Methods Health & Well-Being Selection & Assessment Performance
Successful aging at work is important for both older workers and organizations, but the mechanisms that explain the relationships between family-work interaction and successful aging at work remain unknown. In this scholarly work, we draw upon the work-home resources model to examine whether family-work facilitation can replenish personal resources, thereby ultimately contributing to older workers' successful aging at work. In Study 1, we collected three-wave data from a sample of 263 older workers (aged 45 years and above) working in 56 Chinese companies. The results indicated that family-work facilitation was indeed positively associated with psychological resilience at work, which, in turn, contributed to successful aging at work. To replicate the findings of Study 1 and to test the boundary conditions of the aforementioned relationships, Study 2 employed a three-wave online survey of 316 Chinese older workers. After controlling for alternative mechanisms of successful aging at work (i.e., person-job fit and occupational future time perspective), we found interesting moderation effects as well, indicating that the influence of family-work facilitation on psychological resilience at work was stronger for those individuals scoring higher in work centrality. Our research highlights the importance of a positive work-family interaction for older workers, which functions as a mechanism to capitalize on their resources to achieve successful aging at work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Search Heuristics Under Multiple Objectives: The Case of Corporate Social Responsibility
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Academy of Management Review D. Albert, F. A Csaszar August 19, 2026
Training & Development Motivation Social Responsibility Performance Research Methods
Organizations increasingly pursue multiple objectives, yet we know little about how boundedly rational firms search for better strategies when performance is multidimensional. We use corporate social responsibility—pursuing social and financial outcomes simultaneously—as a motivating context. We distinguish multi-objective decision-making (choosing among known alternatives) from multi-objective search (discovering alternatives through path-dependent local moves), and argue that preferences matter through the heuristics that implement them during search. In a dual-landscape NK simulation, we compare five prominent heuristics: Maximize (improve financial performance only), Combine (raise the sum of financial and social performance), Alternate (pursue one goal until stuck, then switch), Penalize (maximize financial performance while deducting shortfalls below a social threshold), and Satisfice (prioritize financial performance only after meeting a social threshold). Across varying complexity, goal correlation, and thresholds, these heuristics produce systematically different trajectories and joint outcomes. Importantly, by escaping local financial optima, Alternate often discovers “oblique” strategies that match or exceed the financial performance achieved by profit-only local search while also improving social performance. We conclude that implementing the same multi-goal preferences through different search heuristics steers firms toward different regions of the social–financial frontier, shaping both the compromises they reach and the opportunities they discover.
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Filtering the labor pool: How digitalization redistributes hiring costs
Organization Science Moshe Barach August 19, 2026
Selection & Assessment Artificial Intelligence/Technology Training & Development Research Methods Leadership
I theorize that candidate filters, a core technology in digital labor markets considered central to cost-effective matching, redistributes costs from the search-and-screening stage to the job-offer stage of hiring. Filters cause employers to focus on applicants who display common preferred characteristics. At the search-and-screening stage, filters reduce the number of applicants interviewed and alter the composition of the interviewed pool by removing both lower- and higher-quality candidates. At the job-offer stage, filters lead employers to make job offers to candidates with easily observable signals of quality and higher wage demands. Additionally, I theorize that if many firms target the same signals of quality, they may all pursue similar candidates. This increases bargaining power for those applicants, leading to more rejected job offers and higher wage demands. A randomized field experiment in a large online labor market confirms that filters redistribute hiring costs. The experiment shows that employers with access to filters interview 3.4% fewer applicants. Using a machine learning algorithm to proxy for unobservable-to-the-employer applicant quality, I show that filters cause employers to interview 28.9% fewer lower-quality applicants and 36.9% fewer high-quality applicants per job. Among employers who actively used filters, I find suggestive evidence of worse job-offer outcomes: offers are 8.9% more likely to be rejected, and contracted wages are 2.5% higher. I discuss the implications of this cost redistribution for organizations, labor markets, and strategy research.
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Survival Is Triumph Enough: Rhythmic Resilience Amid Chronic Adversity and Acute Shocks
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Journal of Management Ramzi Fathallah, Trenton A. Williams, Jay Joseph August 19, 2026
Training & Development Health & Well-Being Social Responsibility Research Methods Individual Differences
Contexts of adversity generate a wide range of challenges that expose entrepreneurs to compounding hardship yet paradoxically stimulate entrepreneurship as a means of regaining control. Existing research often portrays adversity in two distinct ways, either as a one-time disruptive event or as a persistent condition of the same underlying hardship, overlooking how adversity increasingly unfolds as chronic adversity compounded by multiple acute shocks—a setting that characterizes the lived reality of many entrepreneurs in today’s turbulent world. In such contexts, entrepreneurial resilience is not oriented toward recovery or thriving but toward enduring recurring crises, resource scarcity, and persistent uncertainty. We conducted an inductive, longitudinal study of 32 displaced entrepreneurs living in conflict-affected regions of Iraq. Our analysis reveals a process model of rhythmic resilience in a context of chronic adversity compounded by acute shocks. We show that resilience unfolds through dynamic cycles of withdrawal, reengagement, and adaptation over time that sustain survival across household, venture, and community levels. Yet these processes entail difficult trade-offs, giving rise to a resilience–survival paradox in which entrepreneurs protect survival at the expense of personal well-being, business growth, and social ties.
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Breaking the bond: abusive supervision and workplace mistreatment as predictors of anti-work attitudes and turnover intentions
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Journal of Managerial Psychology Samantha Sinclair, Artur Nilsson, Kristoffer Holm August 19, 2026
Job Attitudes Turnover & Retention Leadership Research Methods Performance
Purpose In recent years, negative attitudes toward work have been spreading in online communities, yet research on the factors that shape these attitudes is scarce. One way in which negative attitudes toward work manifest is through anti-work orientation, a contentious rejection of work as a determinant of one’s self-worth or worth to society. This study examined whether perceptions of abusive supervision and workplace mistreatment (bullying, cyberaggression, sexual harassment, physical violence, and threats of physical violence) predict anti-work orientation and turnover intentions. Design/methodology/approach A preregistered survey study was conducted with a stratified sample of Swedish employees (N = 2,395). Findings In line with our expectations, abusive supervision and workplace mistreatment predicted both anti-work orientation and turnover intentions. Mediation analyses further demonstrated that anti-work orientation partially mediated the effects of mistreatment and abusive supervision on turnover intentions. Originality/value This study is among the first to empirically examine the organizational antecedents of anti-work orientation – an emerging construct with growing societal relevance. The findings suggest that anti-work sentiments may emerge as a psychological response to interpersonal workplace mistreatment and that they may fuel increased intentions to resign.
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Women’s Approachability Premium in Sales: A Field Experiment among Microentrepreneurs
Organization Science Solène Delecourt, Laura Doering, Odyssia Ng August 18, 2026
Training & Development Job Attitudes Conflict Diversity & Inclusion Selection & Assessment
Female entrepreneurs consistently earn less than their male counterparts, a disparity that is particularly acute among microentrepreneurs in developing economies. Researchers often attribute this gap to structural constraints, but pay less attention to how social interactions shape earnings. This oversight is especially relevant in microentrepreneurship, where sales are contingent on customers approaching and interacting with sellers in the marketplace. Using an interactionist lens, we draw on social exchange theory and research on gender stereotypes to guide expectations. We anticipate that customers will more often approach female sellers, expecting warmer interactions, and that this higher volume will translate into higher earnings when business characteristics and selling behavior are held constant. Existing research hints at this dynamic, but methodological constraints have obscured it. To overcome these constraints and test our theory, we conducted a field experiment in two face-to-face markets in India. We trained confederate sellers to run identical, de novo microenterprises and follow standard protocols for customer engagement, thus isolating customer approach in response to sellers’ gender. Female sellers attracted 41% more customers, resulting in significantly higher sales than men, all else equal, in our experiment. Consistent with our theory, customers were more likely to talk with women about topics unrelated to the sale and attempt to bargain with women. This study advances research on gender dynamics in entrepreneurship, negotiation, and customer-facing work by identifying customer approach as a novel mechanism that can generate economic advantages for female microentrepreneurs and may shape gendered opportunities in other markets and organizations.
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Is Our Future Colleague Even Human? Advancing Human–AI Teamwork from an Organizational Perspective
Journal of Organizational Behavior Anna‐Sophie Ulfert, Eleni Georganta, Gudela Grote August 17, 2026
Teams Training & Development Artificial Intelligence/Technology Social Responsibility Individual Differences
ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly part of collaborative work that was once carried out exclusively by humans. In this special issue, we ask whether our future colleagues will even be human and what this means for today's organizations. The eight contributions examine how design choices such as human‐likeness and gendered cues shape perceptions of AI, how AI alters team processes including decision‐making, trust, and stress, and how training and organizational integration condition sustainable human–AI collaboration. Together, the contributions suggest that AI reshapes collective work processes, not only individual judgments. Building on this insight and on sociotechnical systems thinking, we develop a framework that distinguishes where AI is positioned in the social system of work and how much agency it exercises. The framework also raises the normative question of how AI's position in organizations should be governed. Together, the contributions and the framework point toward a research agenda that differentiates between human–AI configurations and treats teams rather than dyads as the unit of analysis.
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Organizational Repression of Stakeholder Collective Action
Academy of Management Review Natalie Holzaepfel, Olga Hawn, Timothy Werner August 17, 2026
Selection & Assessment Teams Performance Training & Development Networks
Organizations face mounting pressure from stakeholders to change practices and policies, yet scholarly understanding of how organizations manage this pressure remains incomplete. While existing research has examined various organizational responses to stakeholder pressure—including acquiescence, neglect, collaboration, and resistance—these responses have been predominantly reactive and discrete, with research overlooking a more systematic approach organizations can employ to neutralize stakeholder pressure before it emerges, and end it if it materializes. To address this gap, this paper introduces organizational repression as an integrated strategy aimed at preventing, controlling, or constraining stakeholder collective action from evolving. Drawing on the social movements and state-based repression literatures, we theorize how organizations can effectively undermine collective action by targeting its enabling conditions across three distinct phases: emergence, coalescence, and formalization. We propose five key repressive tactics—manipulating threat perceptions, closing opportunity structures, restricting resources, selectively disincentivizing recruits, and fragmenting coalitions of members and allies—and explore how organizations can implement each. Ultimately, this paper contributes to the social movements and nonmarket strategy literatures by theorizing organizational repression as a stakeholder management strategy and revealing how organizations can undermine stakeholder efforts to produce organizational and societal change.
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The Behavioral Consequences of Artificial Intelligence at Work: Rethinking Jobs, Skills, and Organizations
Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Peter Cappelli, Prasanna Tambe, Brook Jiang August 17, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Individual Differences Training & Development Performance Organizational Change
We review recent research on the trio of artificial intelligence (AI) practices—electronic platforms, machine learning, and large language models—and their effects on those who use and work with them. Because these tools take over specific tasks from existing jobs, the important effects are how the remaining work changes and how workers react to it. Perhaps our main conclusion is that choices as to how they are used are the most important factor in their effects on those who use them. For example, do they take over boring tasks like note-taking or interesting ones like drafting reports? Do workers spend their saved time checking AI output or taking on new tasks? We describe the wide variety of outcomes and emerging issues such as the ability of chatbots to show empathy, the ability to codify what had been tacit human knowledge, and the development of digital twins, which predict responses from specific individuals.
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Meaning gain spiral: need for sense-making promotes work engagement through searching and finding meaning at work. Results from a four-wave longitudinal study
Journal of Managerial Psychology Katarzyna Cantarero, Aleksandra Penza, Ewelina Smoktunowicz, Agata Gąsiorowska August 17, 2026
Job Attitudes Research Methods Selection & Assessment Individual Differences Leadership
Purpose This research tested a novel concept of the meaning gain spiral at work. Expanding conservation of resources (COR) theory, we examined whether individual differences in the need for sense-making (NSM) promote a meaning gain spiral that enhances work engagement through the processes of searching for work meaning and finding work meaningful. Design/methodology/approach A four-wave longitudinal study was conducted with a sample of 371 employees to test the proposed model. Findings Our results indicate that NSM triggers a gain spiral by increasing the search for meaning at work, which, in turn, leads to finding work meaningful and ultimately boosts work engagement. Originality/value This study advances COR theory to meaning-making processes in the workplace and refines theoretical perspectives on the antecedents and mechanisms of work engagement. Understanding how individuals' NSM relates to their work engagement offers valuable insights for organizational strategies. This knowledge can help organizations better provide resources that support employee sense-making and engagement.
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Newcomer and Incumbent Exit After Comobility Hiring Events
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Personnel Psychology Luciana Zheng Manroop, Rhett Andrew Brymer, Aaron Hill August 15, 2026
Selection & Assessment Turnover & Retention Training & Development Performance Teams
ABSTRACT Newcomers comprise substantial portions of modern workforces, yet they represent high exit risks due to their lack of embeddedness in their new firms. Organizations often source new employees via comobility, wherein newcomers join simultaneously from another firm. Despite the prevalence of comobility and other affiliation‐based hiring practices, research to date has not considered if, when, or how those affiliations affect newcomer retention. We also have scant research on the effects of such comobile, affiliation‐based hiring on incumbent retention, a vital consideration for organizations. Integrating comobility and turnover event theorizing, we explore how comobility affects subsequent exit likelihood. We argue that comovers benefit from the embeddedness fortified through shared ties and work structures with other comovers, increasing their retention. Conversely, we posit that the arrival of comovers negatively impacts incumbents’ social and work structures, reducing incumbents’ job embeddedness and increasing their exit likelihoods. We expect these effects to be amplified when comobility groups are larger and have a leader. We test our framework in two archival analyses of United States (U.S.) college football coaches and U.S. law firm partners (2001‐2018). To investigate how comobility affects embeddedness with comovers and incumbents, we conducted an exploratory cross‐industry survey of full‐time U.S. workers and targeted interviews with comovers to illustrate the phenomenon.
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Fit to Print? How Political Bias Affects Media Coverage of Corporate Sociopolitical Activism
Organization Science Farhan Iqbal, Michael D. Pfarrer, Abhinav Gupta August 14, 2026
Training & Development Diversity & Inclusion Performance Motivation Health & Well-Being
Organizational research has largely treated media coverage of firms as insulated from news outlets’ political biases, implicitly assuming that it provides a balanced representation of firm behaviors. However, increasing political polarization and firms’ growing involvement in social and political controversies challenge this assumption by creating greater scope for news outlets’ political orientations to shape business reporting. We explore this possibility by developing a two-stage framework that discerns news outlets’ attention (i.e., what firm behaviors they cover) from their tone (i.e., how they portray those behaviors). We argue that media organizations face two competing pressures: an incentive to cultivate ideological differentiation that appeals to readers and an incentive to maintain credibility that appeals to advertisers. We find that ideological congruence between a news outlet’s political orientation and a firm’s behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior receives coverage but does not influence the evaluative tone of that coverage—a pattern we term bias allocation. Supplemental analyses also reveal ideological asymmetries across left- and right-leaning outlets. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for research on the media, organizational political ideology, and strategic management.
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Toward a Better Understanding of Job Performance When Working Remotely: Evidence, Boundaries, and Trade-Offs
Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Tammy D. Allen, Kristen M. Shockley, Ryan S. Grant August 14, 2026
Performance Remote Work Teams Networks Health & Well-Being
Despite the prevalence and stability of remote and hybrid work, debate persists regarding whether these arrangements help or harm job performance. In this review, we synthesize research on the complex relationship between remote work and performance, focusing on objective and supervisor-rated job performance as well as innovation and creativity outcomes. We then examine theoretical mechanisms and boundary conditions that explain why and when remote work facilitates or constrains performance. Additionally, we provide recommendations for individual employees, managers, human resource departments, organizations, and policymakers aimed at maximizing performance in remote and hybrid work contexts. Finally, we outline future research directions that move beyond simple comparisons of work location to examine how collaboration processes, location–task fit, different forms of hybrid work, and contextual factors are associated with the relationship between remote work and performance.
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The Gendered Returns to Power: How Gender, Structural Power, and Perceived Resource Sufficiency Shape Meritocracy Perceptions in Organizations
Journal of Organizational Behavior Sonya Mishra, Julia L. Melin, Laura Kray, Cameron Anderson August 13, 2026
Diversity & Inclusion Research Methods Performance Motivation Organizational Change
ABSTRACT Why do women remain underrepresented in positions of power? The present work leverages four studies ( N = 99,293) spanning archival, qualitative, and experimental methods to surface one novel antecedent to this gender gap. Men (vs. women) tend to perceive their organizations as more meritocratic as a function of their structural power (Studies 1–2). This gender difference is statistically accounted for by the fact that men's power is more often accompanied by perceived resource sufficiency , or the appraisal that one has adequate instrumental and material resources to meet role demands and exercise authority effectively (Studies 1–3). A preregistered experiment finds that higher (vs. lower) perceived resource sufficiency increases meritocracy perceptions, which in turn increase career investment intentions but weaken support for equity‐enhancing initiatives (Study 4). Together, these findings reveal that structural power's psychological consequences are not uniform across gender but depend on whether authority is accompanied by the resources needed to exercise power. The gender gap in power may thus reproduce itself, as women become less convinced that the system rewards their effort, whereas men with the authority to change organizational systems become least likely to see the need for change.
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More Money Than Him, More Conflict for Her: A Longitudinal Investigation of the Partner Pay Gap, Work–Family Conflict, and Well‐Being
Human Resource Management Sabrina L. Speights, Andrew C. Loignon, Cynthia Saldanha Halliday August 13, 2026
Research Methods Conflict HR Systems & Talent Management Networks Performance
ABSTRACT Women's earnings have risen, yet work–family conflict (WFC) remains persistent, raising questions about how income differences within couples shape these experiences. We examine the partner pay gap—the difference in earnings between partners—as a household financial structure that conditions work‐family experiences and introduce a gendered relative resources framework to theorize why relative earnings carry different meanings for women and men. Analyzing longitudinal dyadic data from over 4000 German couples, we use a polynomial regression approach embedded within a longitudinal actor‐partner interdependence model. Results show that larger partner pay gaps are associated with higher WFC for women, but not for men. These gendered effects are stronger in more traditional normative contexts, including when women hold traditional gender role beliefs, are parents, or receive lower partner support. We further show that WFC operates as a chronic, accumulating stressor that mediates the relationship between the partner pay gap and women's long‐term well‐being. Post hoc analyses suggest a front‐loaded pattern, with women's WFC increasing most sharply at modest deviations from traditional earning arrangements and leveling off as pay gaps widen. We replicate our findings in a U.S. sample, supporting cross‐national generalizability. Together, these results highlight household earning arrangements as structural conditions that shape whether HRM systems can be effectively translated into reduced WFC, underscoring the importance of integrating household financial dynamics into HRM theory and practice.
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The more deeply embedded in AI, the more creative you become? Investigating the pathways linking AI identity and creative deviance
Journal of Managerial Psychology Xinru Xu, Changbin Wang, Chao Liu, Giang Huong Nguyen August 13, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Research Methods Selection & Assessment Teams Performance
Purpose This study aims to explore how the formation of artificial intelligence (AI) identity impacts employees' creative deviance. Drawing on role theory and the cognitive-affective system theory, it analyzes the pathways and boundary conditions of this influence in the AI-integrated workplace. Design/methodology/approach Using a multi-wave research design, we collected survey data from 379 employees across various industries. The data were analyzed using SPSS to test a dual-path mediation model, examining how creative self-efficacy and AI dependency mediate the AI identity–creative deviance relationship. Post hoc interviews were conducted to provide additional qualitative evidence and insights for future studies. Findings Results reveal that AI identity has competing effects: it enhances creative deviance through increased creative self-efficacy, while suppressing it through heightened AI dependency. Notably, prevention-focused employees experience stronger suppression effects from AI dependency, whereas promotion focus shows no significant moderating effect on the positive pathway. Practical implications The study provides organizations with dual-path management strategies to balance AI adoption and employee innovation, requiring both the cultivation of creative confidence and the prevention of technological overreliance, thereby optimizing human–AI collaborative innovation effectiveness. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by introducing AI identity as a key psychological construct in the context of AI-driven workplaces. By integrating role identity and cognitive-affective processing system theory, this study elucidates the dual mechanisms through which AI identity affects creative deviance, advancing theoretical understanding. It also identifies regulatory focus as a boundary condition, providing fresh insights into how AI identity shapes employee innovation.
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Virtual Reality-, Video- or Text-Based SJTs: Investigating the Effect of Stimulus Format on Presence and Organizational Attractiveness Across Age Groups
Group & Organization Management Maaike Schellaert, Janneke K. Oostrom, Eva Derous August 13, 2026
Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance Teams Training & Development
Emerging technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), are increasingly used in personnel selection processes, for example, to present scenarios in situational judgment tests (SJTs). Despite growing concerns about workforce aging and labor market shortages, limited research has explored how test characteristics interact with applicants’ age. Drawing on the modular approach to personnel selection procedures, two experimental studies among 122 (Study 1: video- vs. text-based stimulus) and 121 participants (Study 2: VR- vs. text-based stimulus) investigated the interaction between stimulus format and test-takers’ age in relation to perceptions of presence and organizational attractiveness. Results of Study 1 showed that a video-based format increased presence but did not significantly affect organizational attractiveness compared to a text-based format. Further, presence did not mediate the relationship between stimulus format and organizational attractiveness, and age did not moderate the effects. In contrast, a VR-based stimulus significantly enhanced both presence and organizational attractiveness compared to a text-based format, with stronger effects among younger and middle-aged test-takers than older ones. Moreover, presence mediated the relationship between stimulus format and organizational attractiveness. These findings emphasize the importance of applying a human-centric approach when considering test characteristics and age-related differences in the development of fair selection procedures.
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Hinting or Boasting? How Attributions of Leaders' Stress Bragging Shape Employee Behavior Through Rumination and Reflection
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Houyong Tao, J. W. Li, Xiao Deng August 12, 2026
Health & Well-Being Performance Job Attitudes Organizational Culture Training & Development
ABSTRACT The rise of performance excellence cultures and intensifying competitive pressure have made stress bragging a common workplace phenomenon. Although existing research has focused on stress bragging among peers, its effects when enacted by leaders remain poorly understood. Grounded in attribution theory and cognitive theories of repetitive thought, this study investigates how subordinates' attributions of leaders' stress bragging (performance improvement vs. impression management) shape their cognitive and behavioral responses. The results of Study 1 (a scenario‐based experiment with 294 employees) and Study 2 (a two‐wave survey of 332 employees) reveal that these attributions yield divergent outcomes. When perceived as performance oriented, such behavior prompted task‐focused reflection, thereby boosting work engagement. Conversely, when interpreted as impression management, it sparked leader‐focused rumination, which subsequently led to interpersonal withdrawal. These findings underscore the pivotal role of attributional processes in explaining the double‐edged effects of leaders' stress bragging on both work‐related and interpersonal outcomes.
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Rewarded to Reject? Exploring Motivational Roots of Idea Rejection in Teams
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Matthias Felix Sinnemann, Matthias Weiß, Julia Backmann August 12, 2026
Motivation Teams Performance Diversity & Inclusion Health & Well-Being
ABSTRACT Teams hold the potential for creative performance, yet diverse perspectives may also lead to the premature rejection of unconventional ideas. Because such rejection can prevent teams from realizing their creative potential, understanding what motivational processes drive idea rejection during brainstorming is critical. Drawing on the Motivated Information Processing in Groups model (MIP‐G), we identify the reward structure offered to teams as an antecedent of idea rejection and examine how individual, team, and mixed rewards affect idea rejection and, ultimately, team creativity. We propose that individual rewards foster proself motivation, increasing team idea rejection; team rewards activate prosocial motivation, reducing it; and mixed rewards balance both motives. In an experimental lab study using behavioral video coding of 80 teams comprising 290 participants, we find that individual rewards significantly increase team idea rejection. Contrary to our expectations, team rewards also lead to elevated rejection, whereas mixed rewards reduce rejection compared to individual and team rewards. Exploratory post hoc analyses indicate that team idea rejection varies as a function of teams' level of information elaboration. Moreover, rewards are associated with differences in the novelty of rejected ideas, and novel ideas tend to be rejected in later stages of the ideation process. In contrast, we find no evidence that the manner of rejection, whether collaborative or competitive, systematically influences team creativity. These findings show that integrating proself and prosocial motives through mixed rewards may support creative collaboration in teams more effectively than emphasizing either motive alone.
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Beyond Bidirectionality in Spill‐Overs: Asymmetrical Work‐Life Dynamics and Indigenous Support Systems in a Fragile‐State Military Context
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Human Resource Development Quarterly Adejumoke Adeoti, Josiah Akintunde, Clement Dabang, Chima Mordi, Babatunde Akanji August 12, 2026
Research Methods Health & Well-Being Performance Training & Development Job Attitudes
ABSTRACT Work‐life balance and work engagement are central concerns in human resource development because they shape employee well‐being, resilience, retention, and sustainable performance across demanding work environments. However, much of the literature on work‐life balance and engagement has been developed in relatively stable civilian and Western institutional contexts, where role boundaries are more manageable and formal support systems are often more reliable. These assumptions may not hold in fragile‐state military settings characterized by prolonged insecurity, deployment instability, rigid hierarchy, and uneven welfare provision. This study explores how personnel in the Armed Forces of Nigeria experience work‐life balance and work engagement under such conditions. Drawing on qualitative interview data from 60 military personnel and using a Gioia‐inspired analytical approach, the study integrates the Job Demands‐Resources (JD‐R) model and spill‐over theory to examine how demands, resources, and cross‐domain pressures interact in a fragile‐state military context. The findings show that work‐life spill‐over is not experienced as a balanced or consistently reciprocal process. Instead, participants describe a strongly asymmetrical dynamic in which prolonged deployment, hypervigilance, unpredictable scheduling, welfare strain, and institutional rigidity intrude into family life and weaken recovery, morale, and sustained engagement. At the same time, kinship ties, peer solidarity, and communal reciprocity emerge as culturally embedded informal resources that partially buffer these pressures where formal organizational supports are weak or unevenly accessible. The study contributes to HRD scholarship in two main ways. First, it refines spill‐over theory by showing that, in a fragile‐state military setting, spill‐over is better understood as structurally asymmetrical rather than presumptively bidirectional. Second, it extends JD‐R theory by demonstrating that resources are hierarchically mediated and culturally supplemented rather than simply organizationally present or absent. These findings extend work‐life and engagement research into an under‐studied Global South military context and underscore the importance of context‐sensitive HRD interventions in high‐risk institutional environments.
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The protective role of sleep in tempering the impact of ICT ‐driven off‐hour interruptions on exhaustion at work
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Angela R. Grotto, Rui Sundrup, Maura J. Mills August 11, 2026
Health & Well-Being Research Methods Performance Leadership Organizational Culture
Abstract Off‐hour work interruptions are prevalent in organizations that expect employee availability during off‐hours through information‐communication technologies (ICTs). We bring together domain switch theory and threaded cognition theory to argue that ICT availability demands increase off‐hour interruptions during periods intended for generating work‐relevant resources, resulting in exhaustion at work. We sought to identify how individuals could buffer this threat. While to date the literature has primarily examined sleep disruption as an outcome of ICT use or a means of restoring resources post‐stressor exposure, we extend the literature by exploring the protective power of sleep duration as a resource‐generating activity employees can leverage in ICT‐demanding work environments. Using multilevel data across a five‐day workweek from a sample of working adults (level 2: N = 176) with daily off‐hour interruption reports (level 1: N = 679), we found that sleep duration reduced the indirect effect of ICT availability demands on exhaustion via off‐hour interruptions, while controlling for sleep quality. These findings suggest that prioritizing sleep can help accrue resources needed for work, shifting the perspective from sleep as a reactive restorative process to a proactive protective mechanism. Results also underscore the potential value of organizational policies and leader behaviors that promote and enable sufficient off‐hours worker rest.
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Coworking: Finding Value Through Work Companions
Organization Science Christina Hymer, Mark A. Maltarich, Sherry M. B. Thatcher August 11, 2026
Organizational Culture Job Attitudes Remote Work Selection & Assessment Training & Development
Many workers have the flexibility to work across different work locations, and some choose to join coworking spaces, where they work alongside others with different employers, occupations, and backgrounds. Yet little is known about the nature of relationships formed within this type of work location, where individuals lack shared goals and a common organizational umbrella. Thus, we ask, how do workers manage and find value from relationships within coworking spaces? Applying grounded theory techniques to collect and analyze observational, archival, and interview data collected from 80 workers in 21 coworking spaces, we derive a theoretical model that centers around the novel construct of work companions: individuals who work alongside one another with a shared focus on work but without family, friendship, or employment relationship obligations. The coworking space environment, overseen by one or more space managers, provides favorable conditions for the formation of work companions. Through interaction flexibility, coworking space members socially engage or parallel work with work companions, extracting both personal and professional value. Relational embeddedness, defined as the existence of family, friendship, or employment relationships, imposes obligations that make work companion interactions less flexible, creating a boundary condition to these findings. Introducing the work companion construct and elaborating relationships among coworking space members offers promising avenues for future research and informs management practice on work companions, coworking, and remote work.
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Practitioner's Pulse: A Content Analysis Approach for Examining Prevalent Topics in HRD Practitioner Periodicals
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Human Resource Development Quarterly Ellen Scully‐Russ, Sarah M. Ray, Henriette Lundgren August 11, 2026
Research Methods Training & Development Teams Selection & Assessment Performance
ABSTRACT This article presents a methodological approach for analyzing Human Resource Development (HRD) practitioner perspectives through a content analysis (CA) of periodicals. While CA has been applied to academic literature, its application to practitioner periodicals represents a methodological reorientation because these sources differ fundamentally in structure, language, purpose, and audience from academic publications. By analyzing these sources on their own terms—rather than through academic frameworks, we can systematically identify many practitioners' concerns, priorities, and evolving practices that might not be captured in traditional literature reviews. We utilize data from January 2018 to April 2019 as a case example to illustrate the effectiveness of this approach. This analysis is situated in the literature on the contours of the research‐practice gap in HRD and other applied human and organizational development disciplines, which makes the case for innovation approaches to facilitating dialogue and collaboration between HRD scholars and practitioners. We explain the methodology used for the CA based on practitioner periodicals, and we show how it offers a robust, rigorous, and replicable approach for continually tracking and analyzing content in practice journals. The significance of the findings, though now historical, reveals how issues are interrelated in practice and the way the social context shapes practice and the strategic importance of topics in practice. As the field continues to grapple with questions of relevance and impact, methodological innovations that facilitate meaningful dialogue between research and practice will be essential for advancing both the theory and practice of HRD.
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Daily temporal profiles at work: State-level dynamics in past, present, and future focus.
Journal of Applied Psychology Brian C. Holtz, Harshad Girish Puranik, Crystal M. Harold, Kathleen R. Keeler, Yiming Huang, et al. August 10, 2026
Performance Teams Turnover & Retention
= 263), we replicate these results and identify one additional profile. Further, in Study 2, we find that daily fluctuation in profile membership is shaped by morning expectations about time affluence, time control, and economic mindsets. We also show that profile membership is associated with daily workplace outcomes, including task performance, collaboration, and withdrawal behavior. By demonstrating the variability and impact of state-level temporal focus profiles, this research advances our understanding of temporal focus in organizational contexts and sets the stage for future research in this area. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Reinforcing or eroding norms? The team consequences of negative gossip network.
Journal of Applied Psychology Rui Zhong, Yimin He, Yinbo Zheng, Christopher M. Barnes, Kyle Wu, et al. August 10, 2026
Networks Teams Organizational Culture Job Attitudes Performance
While prior research has established that negative gossip can reinforce behavioral norms by deterring inappropriate conduct, these findings have largely been limited to the individual level. Accordingly, it remains unclear how gossip influences team norms at the team level-specifically, whether it continues to reinforce team norms against inappropriate conduct, as suggested by individual-level findings, or instead may backfire to erode such norms. Integrating the social network perspective with behavioral regulation theory, we propose competing hypotheses about how team-level gossip shapes proscriptive team norms, which serve to deter harmful behaviors that team members should not engage in: a norm-reinforcing effect and a norm-eroding effect. We conceptualize team-level gossip through both its prevalence (network density) and its distribution (network reciprocity and centralization). We further propose that gossip prevalence and distribution interact in predicting proscriptive team norms. We conducted a multiwave, multisource, round-robin study of 104 work teams with 1,344 team members and 104 supervisors. Contrary to the norm-reinforcing effect commonly shown in individual-level studies, our findings support a norm-eroding effect at the team level. Specifically, gossip density was associated with weakened proscriptive team norms, which in turn predicted increased proscription-based behavior-namely, team counterproductive work behavior. Furthermore, this norm-eroding effect of gossip density on team norms and counterproductive work behavior was amplified in teams with higher levels of gossip reciprocity or lower levels of gossip centralization. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Self‐monitoring and job performance: Substance or style? A meta‐analysis
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Klaus Moser, Katharina Ebner, Dragoş Iliescu, Alexandru-Andrei Sîrbu August 10, 2026
Performance Research Methods Selection & Assessment Networks Training & Development
Abstract Self‐monitoring aims at adjusting one's behaviour in social interactions. While scholars have been convinced that self‐monitoring predicts job performance, the strength and nature of the relationship between self‐monitoring and job performance remain unclear. Specifically, it may not be explained by a competency perspective but rather a biased‐perceiver perspective, where self‐monitors may primarily succeed in influencing raters' perceptions of their performance. Therefore, a meta‐analysis was conducted, identifying 35 samples that reported the respective correlations. The results reveal a modest overall relationship ( r = .12). Importantly, moderator analyses suggest that this relationship is driven by self‐monitors influencing supervisors' performance ratings. Likewise, a correlation between self‐monitoring and job performance was observed only in supervisor ratings, but not in performance assessments based on outcome measures, and the relationship was evident in ratings of contextual performance, but not of task performance. These findings tend to support a biased‐perceiver perspective, suggesting that self‐monitoring is more strongly related to impression formation than to actual job performance, though the magnitudes of moderator effects are modest, and residual heterogeneity in the data remains considerable. The modest relationship between self‐monitoring and job performance thus appears to be more about style (biased performance ratings) than substance (contributing to actual job performance).
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How we benefit from job satisfaction: The moderating effect of informal caregiving on the associations between job satisfaction and physiological and psychological stress.
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Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Jensine Paoletti, Vincent D. Lai, Christopher P. Fagundes August 10, 2026
Research Methods Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being Performance Networks
Job satisfaction and the resource-building processes it supports may have meaningful implications for health and well-being. These processes may work differently for employees who have informal (i.e., unpaid) caregiving duties outside of work. Guided by conservation of resources theory, we examined two indirect stress-buffering pathways in a sample of 799 nursing home workers, measured four times over 18 months. We tested how job satisfaction affects gain strengthening (via higher positive spillover) and loss weakening (via lower work-family conflict), how these processes impact indices of physiological (i.e., C-reactive protein) and psychological (i.e., perceived) stress, and how informal caregiving status may moderate these associations. We did not find strictly distinct pathways by caregiver status, but we did find differential within-person patterns among informal caregivers and noncaregivers. Most relevant for noncaregivers, times of higher job satisfaction were indirectly associated with (a) lower C-reactive protein through times of higher work-family positive spillover and with (b) lower perceived stress through times of lower work-family conflict. When employees (regardless of caregiver status) reported job satisfaction that was higher than their own average, they also reported lower perceived stress and showed lower chronic inflammation than at times when their job satisfaction was equal to or lower than their own average. We discuss theoretical and practical implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Sick of sexism? Ambivalent sexism, work–family conflicts, and physical health of working mothers.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Anna Katharina Bader, Vesa Peltokorpi August 10, 2026
Health & Well-Being Conflict Research Methods Networks Training & Development
Working mothers encounter persistent sexism in the workplace. This study draws on ambivalent sexism theory to examine the mediated relationships of supervisors' hostile and benevolent sexist behaviors and working mothers' physical health via conflicts in the work-family interface. Given the ambivalent nature of hostile and benevolent sexism, we hypothesize two distinct pathways: (a) a congruent pathway, in which hostile sexism, via work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts, is positively related to poor physical health and (b) an opposing pathway, in which benevolent sexism, via work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts, is respectively negatively and positively related to poor physical health. Because both hostile and ambivalent sexism are rooted in assumptions of traditional gender roles, we further hypothesize that working mothers' gender role orientation moderates the relationships between ambivalent sexism and conflicts in the work-family interface. Our findings from a three-wave, time-lagged study of 719 working mothers with young children under the age of 5 provide general support for these hypotheses. This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating how and why ambivalent sexism can simultaneously mitigate and exacerbate conflicts in the work-family interface, affecting mothers' physical health and the perpetuation of workplace gender inequality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Risk patterns of psychosocial job characteristics associated with exhaustion: Combining configurational and variable-centered approaches.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Ivon Ames, Jan Dettmers August 10, 2026
Health & Well-Being Research Methods Job Design Selection & Assessment Measurement & Psychometrics
Theoretical models on psychosocial job characteristics have proposed the interaction of demands and resources in shaping employee health, yet empirical evidence for their interplay in the development of impaired well-being using statistical approaches modeling interaction effects remains inconsistent. We propose fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, a configurational approach, as an alternative to identify combinations of job characteristics that may be associated with impaired well-being outcomes such as exhaustion. Using a split-sample design, we analyzed data from 9,358 employees nested in 980 teams across 32 organizations. Eight job characteristics (five demands and three resources) were examined through fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis in one subsample and validated in the second using three-level generalized linear mixed models. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis yielded five configurations that were sufficient for the presence of exhaustion, three of which remained robust in sensitivity tests, as well as two protective configurations characterized by a complex pattern of multiple high resources and low demands. Multilevel validation analyses confirmed the estimation validity of all three robust risk configurations, with graded associations across partial configuration membership. Two of the three configurations demonstrated additional explanatory value beyond the individual job characteristics. These findings provide evidence for synergistic associations of specific demand-resource combinations. Practically, results highlight the need for configuration-sensitive risk assessments and interventions that address unfavorable constellations of job characteristics rather than isolated conditions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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We Succeeded, But Did I Learn? How Team Role Orientations Affect Individual‐Level Transfer of Team Training
Personnel Psychology Erich C. Dierdorff, Tyree Mitchell, Robert S. Rubin, Rhett Andrew Brymer August 09, 2026
Training & Development Teams Research Methods Selection & Assessment Job Attitudes
ABSTRACT An extensive body of evidence supports the benefits of team training on team outcomes, yet the extent to which individuals themselves benefit from such training remains largely underexplored. Drawing on role and self‐regulation theories, this study examines how team role orientations influence the extent to which team members acquire the targeted competencies of team training. We explain how team role orientations direct team member cognitive and behavioral resources in team training contexts, and team members’ specific role orientations can either aid or hinder individual learning outcomes. From a sample of 84 student teams ( N = 330) engaged in a simulation‐based team training program, we find that the Doer role orientation enhances taskwork knowledge and skill outcomes from team training, the Team Builder orientation enhances teamwork skill and knowledge outcomes, and the Organizer role orientation inhibits taskwork knowledge and skill and teamwork knowledge outcomes. We also hypothesize regulatory learning behavior (i.e., planning, assessing, and adjusting individual contributions to teams) as a key mediating mechanism that explains these effects and find supporting evidence as it relates to the Doer and Team Builder orientations. Further, we find support for the amplifying top‐down influence of team learning effectiveness on the relationships between Doer and Organizer orientations and learning outcomes. Our findings underscore the complexity of individual learning transfer in team training settings, emphasizing the need to consider team contexts, individual tendencies, and regulatory learning behaviors when designing team training interventions.
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Controlling Time or Controlled by Time? AI-Mediated Workflows as an Occasion for Structuring
Organizational Psychology Review Kuok Kei Law, Ricardo Lim, Gyung Yeol Yang August 08, 2026
Training & Development Teams Leadership Artificial Intelligence/Technology Individual Differences
How does artificial intelligence (AI) re-shape the temporal experience of work? We argue that AI does not determine work tempo on its own. Its temporal force is configured by leaders and enacted by workers. Building on structuration theory, we develop a process model in which leaders configure AI systems along the dimensions of temporal authority and interaction frequency, generating AI-driven time pressure that workers navigate through temporal job crafting. Whether this synchronization becomes subjugating or agentic depends on leaders’ temporal leadership, and the resulting individual and collective outcomes feed back to prompt continual re-configuration, with no optimal end. Our work contributes a non-deterministic account of AI and time, re-positions temporal leadership as socio-technical governance, and extends entrainment theory by linking micro-level adaptation to macro-level collaborative dynamics.
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Jailcraft: Atmospheric Security Work in Violent Contexts
Academy of Management Journal Adrian Marrison, Jaco Lok, Mark de Rond August 07, 2026
Job Attitudes Training & Development Networks Organizational Change Research Methods
Drawing on a 12-month immersive ethnography of prison officers in an English prison, we explore the relation between security work and atmosphere. We show how prison security hinges on officers becoming proficient in “atmospheric work,” or a bundle of practices purposively oriented at sensing and modulating atmospheres in situationally adaptive ways to prevent violence. Colloquially known as “jailcraft,” these practices involve sensing the prison’s atmosphere for signs of rising tension, amplifying atmospheric tension as a means of control, and dampening tension if actual violence is deemed imminent. Our conceptualization advances organization research that has tended to cast atmosphere as either a target object of aesthetic work or as a diffuse affective background to sensemaking. We show empirically that these approaches miss something crucial, and especially in the world of security work. This is because here atmosphere is neither a backdrop nor an embellishment but actively sensed and “worked” in real time. This means that security workers’ “atmotechnic” interventions reveal a form of agentic atmospheric engagement that is strikingly purposive, yet curiously non-aesthetic in orientation.
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Enhancing Mothers' Well‐Being: The Role of Stress Mindsets and Coping Appraisals in Addressing Maternal Discrimination at Work
Journal of Organizational Behavior Samantha C. Paustian‐Underdahl, Kaylee J. Hackney, Shanna R. Daniels, Yingge Li, James Whyte, et al. August 06, 2026
Health & Well-Being Diversity & Inclusion Measurement & Psychometrics Organizational Change Performance
ABSTRACT Discrimination against working mothers is among the strongest forms of employment discrimination today. In the current study, we integrate the stress mindset literature with the organizational literature on stress and coping to examine how a stress‐is‐enhancing mindset improves women's primary and secondary coping appraisals of perceived maternal discrimination, which in turn relates to women's perceived health. Study 1 includes multi‐wave field data from working mothers across a variety of organizations in the United States, offering desirable external validity. Results show that stress mindset predicts more adaptive primary appraisals, which in turn relate to secondary appraisals and ultimately to better perceived health. Study 2 experimentally manipulates stress mindset through a video‐based intervention (vs. control) and examines changes in coping appraisals from pre‐ to post‐intervention. The intervention significantly improved secondary appraisals (but not primary appraisals), producing an indirect effect on perceived health through secondary appraisals alone. We conclude by discussing theoretical implications for stress mindset and appraisal research, methodological contributions, and practical recommendations for supporting working mothers facing discrimination.
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Performance Management
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Performance Selection & Assessment Teams
This chapter explores the role of performance management systems in driving individual, team and organisational effectiveness. It examines the objectives, components, and cyclical nature of performance management, alongside managerial responsibilities in goal-setting and feedback. The chapter critically reviews the traditional appraisal methods and highlights their limitations, alongside growing doubts about their accuracy, relevance, and effectiveness. At the same time, it examines the contemporary methods of managing performance using continuous performance dialogues and regular reviews. Competency-based management of performance is explored as companies increasingly hire for skills and less for acquired formal qualifications.
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Employee Relations
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Performance Training & Development Job Attitudes Conflict Networks
This chapter examines employee relations as a core function of human resource management, shaping workplace cooperation, trust, and organisational stability. It introduces key theoretical approaches, including systems theory, psychological contracts, legitimacy theory, symbolic self-completion, the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) model, and social exchange theory, to explain how employment relationships are formed and maintained. The chapter situates employee relations within the UK context by reviewing key legislation governing employment rights, equality, and trade union relations. It further examines the strategic role of employee relations in managing conflict, ensuring compliance, and promoting employee engagement and voice. Readers will develop a critical understanding of how effective employee relations contribute to organisational performance and workforce engagement.
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Building a Robust Hiring Process
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Selection & Assessment Measurement & Psychometrics Performance Individual Differences Organizational Change
This chapter examines how organisations design and implement effective hiring systems in a rapidly evolving labour market. It examines recruitment objectives, key internal and external factors that influence recruitment decisions, and various sourcing strategies for attracting talent. The chapter analyses recruitment processes, the growing role of artificial intelligence and how it is changing the way companies hire, highlighting opportunities and challenges. It further investigates selection methods, including tests, interviews, and background verification, while addressing common errors in the selection process. The concepts of reliability and validity in selection tools are critically discussed to support evidence-based decision-making. By the end, readers will understand how to build fair, efficient, and evidence-based hiring processes.
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Contemporary Issues in HRM
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Social Responsibility Training & Development Networks Diversity & Inclusion HR Systems & Talent Management
This chapter brings together the most forward-looking debates in human resource management (HRM). It examines emerging and complex challenges shaping contemporary human resource management. It explores the rise of the gig economy and associated HRM issues, including employment ambiguity, algorithmic management, worker wellbeing, and limited employee voice. The chapter analyses the devolution of traditional HR roles and the evolution of people management through stakeholder perspectives. It further investigates the relationship between HRM and innovation, sustainability, volunteerism, and global development goals. Generational diversity and empathy-driven leadership are examined as critical capabilities for managing modern workforces. By integrating theoretical perspectives with evolving workplace realities, the chapter equips readers to critically evaluate future HRM practices and design responsive, ethical, and sustainable people management strategies.
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When and Why Group Pay Dispersion Enhances Employee Performance: A Collective Identity Orientation Perspective
Human Resource Management Jih‐Yu Mao, Kong Zhou, Li Guo, Manlin LI, Wenxing Liu, et al. August 06, 2026
Performance Teams HR Systems & Talent Management Training & Development Motivation
ABSTRACT Organizations use compensation to attract, retain, and motivate employees to achieve their strategic goals. This research shifts the focus of pay differences from individuals to groups by focusing on pay differences among employees in the same functional work teams (i.e., within‐group pay dispersion) and between employees across functional work teams (i.e., between‐group pay dispersion). Drawing on identity theories, we propose that between‐group pay dispersion strengthens employee collective identity orientation, which in turn increases employee task performance and in‐group helping. This relationship is less salient when within‐group pay dispersion is larger and more salient when within‐group pay dispersion is smaller. The results of two multi‐wave field survey studies (Studies 1 and 4) support our predictions. Two controlled experiments (Studies 2 and 3) strengthen the causal explanations and enhance result robustness. Our findings suggest that between‐group pay dispersion may lead to desirable employee performance behaviors and provide insights into pay strategies.
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Artificial Intelligence in Human Resource Management
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology HR Systems & Talent Management Individual Differences Teams Social Responsibility
The chapter explores various classifications and applications of artificial intelligence (AI), such as automated intelligence, augmented intelligence, autonomous intelligence, generative AI, predictive AI, and conversational AI. It also examines the challenges in AI integration with human resource management, whether it increases the general complexity of the HR function, or the problem of small data sets coupled with fairness and accountability concerns and ethical and legal constraints. The chapter also analyses the suggested principles for overcoming such challenges in a way that AI and HI (human intelligence) can work collaboratively in the future.
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HR Strategy and Planning
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
HR Systems & Talent Management Selection & Assessment Performance Organizational Culture Research Methods
The chapter introduces learners to the concept of Strategic Human Resource Management and outlines that the role of human resources (HR) in the modern-day world is to help organisations win in the marketplace. That requires one to examine the ‘why’ behind every HR decision and evaluate whether that not only contributes to meeting stakeholder needs but also contributes to competitive advantage. The chapter discusses various approaches to strategic human resource management, how HR strategy aligns with corporate strategy through vertical and horizontal integration and situates GR practices within strategic analysis frameworks. This chapter will help learners assess how HR strategy is formulated, aligned and implemented to create and maximise organisational value.
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Employee Engagement
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Job Attitudes Performance Health & Well-Being Teams Social Responsibility
This chapter examines employee engagement as a critical driver of organisational performance and employee wellbeing. It introduces the concept and explores the three entities of engagement, distinguishing engagement from related constructs such as job involvement. The chapter analyses major theoretical perspectives, including the Job Demands–Resources model, self-determination theory, social exchange theory, and psychological safety theory, to explain how engagement emerges and is sustained. It further explores the building blocks of engagement, work–life balance dynamics, and the interplay of collaboration and competition at work. Methods of measuring engagement, including Gallup Q12, employee net promoter score, and the MADE model, are evaluated. Readers will gain insight into designing evidence-based strategies to foster and measure sustainable employee engagement.
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Rewards and Compensation Management
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
HR Systems & Talent Management Motivation Selection & Assessment Performance Diversity & Inclusion
This chapter discusses employee compensation and benefits. Living wages, their origin, purpose, initiatives of the UK Living Wage Foundation and benefits to workers are mentioned in the chapter. The principle of equity and how it governs the design of employee compensation and benefits is discussed, and learners are encouraged to compare and contrast this with the principle of equality in compensation. The chapter also focuses on variable pay systems that include employee stock options, bonuses, incentives, etc. Various employee benefits are also discussed with the learners, once again encouraged to assess how benefits should be designed and the degree to which employees should be involved in the co-design of benefit plans. Pyramidical structure of reward and recognition programmes is also discussed. Job evaluation and various methods used in the pricing of the jobs are discussed in detail.
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International Human Resource Management
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
HR Systems & Talent Management Training & Development Performance Selection & Assessment Health & Well-Being
This chapter examines the function of international human resource management (IHRM) as a strategic necessity for every organisation in a highly globalised world. It assesses the strategic role of HR in multinational companies, internationalisation strategies, and alternative international HR approaches, including adaptive, exportive, and integrative models. The chapter explores key IHRM roles, including process champion, custodian of culture, effective political influencer, network leader, articulating various international HR management basics, change partner, and navigator. It also focuses on key IHRM activities such as international staffing, cross-cultural management, global training and development, international performance and talent management, labour relations, compensation, and expatriate health and safety. Cultural challenges are analysed using Hofstede&s;s dimensions to highlight differences in management practices across contexts. Readers will develop an understanding of how IHRM aligns global integration with local responsiveness to build sustainable international capability.
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Effective Employee Training and Development
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Training & Development Performance Selection & Assessment Measurement & Psychometrics
This chapter discusses learning as a process, how humans learn, various learning types, learning theories and their implications in designing instructions and in the overall instructional design strategy. The chapters also discuss how assessing learning as a discipline helps appreciate training as a practice. The challenges of transfer of learning, ensuring training effectiveness, ways to measure the usefulness of training, and practical limitations in training evaluation are discussed.
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Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Diversity & Inclusion Training & Development HR Systems & Talent Management Performance Networks
This chapter examines equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) as central concerns in contemporary human resource management. It introduces the rationale for EDI in modern organisations and positions EDI as a strategic human resource management (HRM) priority rather than a purely compliance-driven activity. The chapter explores conceptual foundations, including equality of opportunity and outcomes, inclusion beyond representation, and intersectionality. Key theoretical perspectives such as social identity theory, human capital theory, institutional theory, and critical diversity theory are analysed. It also reviews forms of workplace discrimination and the UK legal framework, particularly the Equality Act 2010, alongside positive action and good employment practices. Readers will develop the capability to design and evaluate inclusive and legally compliant HR strategies.
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Human Resource Automation, Audit, and Accounting
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Performance HR Systems & Talent Management Artificial Intelligence/Technology Selection & Assessment Training & Development
This chapter explores how technology, evaluation, and measurement systems enhance the strategic contribution of human resource management. It examines HR automation, including HR information systems, payroll, recruitment, performance management, and employee self-service platforms, alongside the benefits and potential pitfalls of digitalisation. The chapter introduces human resource audits as tools for assessing legal compliance, benchmarking effectiveness, and strategic alignment, supported by practical audit approaches and checklists. It further analyses human resource accounting methods, including cost-based and economic value approaches, and debates their usefulness in organisational decision-making. Readers will develop critical insight into how automation, audit, and accounting practices improve HR efficiency, accountability, and strategic impact.
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Introduction to Human Resource Management
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
HR Systems & Talent Management Training & Development
This chapter shines a spotlight on the most important asset of any company – its human resources. It argues why employees are the company&s;s best brand ambassadors and how a firm can develop them as those who champion their brand. The chapter further delves into the evolution of human resources and the emergence of new-age human resource management. The chapter also introduces the readers to different human resource (HR) systems and processes. It also contrasts traditional and modern human resource management, and why HR today is less about HR and more about enabling businesses to win in the marketplace.
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Workforce Architecture
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Selection & Assessment HR Systems & Talent Management Research Methods
This chapter discusses two major activities that precede the hiring operation – estimating the human resource needs or human resource planning, and analysing the job or jhob analysis. It examines the major implications of human resource plans and the wide range of HR operations and decisions that they influence. It discusses the various factors affecting human resource planning and different ways of demand and supply forecasting. The chapter also discusses job analysis in detail, outlining different ways of conducting job analysis, outlining in detail the questionnaire method and Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) and the final outputs as job descriptions and job specifications, and how they impact various HR operations.
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Talent Management
Human Resource Management Debashish Sengupta August 06, 2026
Performance HR Systems & Talent Management Selection & Assessment Training & Development Individual Differences
The chapter examines how talent management has become a strategic necessity for organisations and their ability to attract, develop and retain individuals who can create value for the stakeholders. It examines the current trend in talent management and how its meaning and application are changing in an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven world. It aims to demystify how we define talent. Do we mean high performers when we say talent? Do talents only exist in the upper echelons of the organisation? The chapter evaluates the main areas of talent management and the relative responsibilities of various owners of the talent management process in an organisation. Furthermore, it assesses the future of talent management and how it needs to be integrated at all levels that align people&s;s capabilities with long-term organisational strategy and make the talent process efficient and effective.
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Trust Beyond Interpersonal Relationships: Unpacking Organizational Trust
Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Oliver Schilke, Martin Reimann August 06, 2026
Networks Artificial Intelligence/Technology Remote Work
Trust has often been understood as an interpersonal leap of faith between individuals. But increasingly, that leap is directed toward organizations and enacted by organizations. As enterprise algorithms, marketplace platforms, and distributed work arrangements replace face-to-face interactions, vulnerability sits less in individual people and more in collective systems. This makes organizational trust a practically important but conceptually underspecified construct. In this review, we conceptualize organizational trust as a collective phenomenon in which the trustor, the trustee, or both are organizations. To structure our review, we use a trustor–trustee matrix that distinguishes between three constellations of organizational trust: individual → organization, organization → individual, and organization → organization. We then introduce a sixfold typology that explains what element (i.e., metaphor, agent substitution, composition, identity, network, or actorhood) carries trust at the organizational level. We also offer a decision tree that links research questions, mechanisms, and operationalizations with the appropriate carrier. Finally, we close by identifying research priorities for future work on organizational trust.
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Are All “Good” Employees Susceptible to Moral Biases? Exceptional (Versus Intermediate) Moral Character Shapes Resilience to Daily “DIAMONDS” Situations That Trigger Moral Disengagement
Journal of Organizational Behavior Babatunde Ogunfowora, Varun Sharma, Mohammad Khalilinejad, Kimberly Weston Moore August 05, 2026
Selection & Assessment Individual Differences Artificial Intelligence/Technology Research Methods
ABSTRACT The non‐rationalist view of morality holds that all employees—including “good” apples—are liable to do bad because they are susceptible to moral biases in everyday situational encounters. In contrast, the rationalist or trait view suggests that employees with strong moral character should be resilient against moral biases across situations and over time. Rather than treating these perspectives as competing explanations, we ask a more nuanced question: In which situational encounters and for whom does moral character shape susceptibility to daily moral biases at work? Drawing on research on moral exemplarity, we argue that “good” exists along a continuum from intermediate to exceptional moral character, with only the exceptional consistently exhibiting moral resilience. Integrating moral disengagement theory with the Situational Eight DIAMONDS model, we identify and test a comprehensive set of episodic work situations that may trigger daily within‐person fluctuations in state moral disengagement. Across two pilot studies, work situations characterized by Deception , Adversity / Negativity , and unexpectedly, Mating , positively predicted same‐day moral disengagement. In a 3‐week diary study, daily encounters of these situations triggered daily moral disengagement, which subsequently increased daily instrumental OCBs, reduced genuine OCBs, and heightened incivility among employees low to intermediate (but not exceptional) on trait Honesty–Humility. We also find that exceptional‐character employees exhibited low moral amplitude or volatility in moral disengagement over time. Our discussion highlights the necessity of considering both within‐person fluctuations and between‐person differences in resilience against moral biases at work.
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When play becomes pressure: how gamification and algorithms shape gig workers’ burnout
Journal of Managerial Psychology Jianing Cao, Mengxi Yang, Xiaojie Liang, Yihang Wei August 05, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Health & Well-Being Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance
Purpose Grounded in Affective Events Theory and Self-Determination Theory, this study examines how work gamification shapes gig workers’ emotional labor strategies and burnout under different algorithmic features. Design/methodology/approach Using a three-wave survey of 311 gig workers, we tested relationships among work gamification, emotional labor strategies and burnout, along with the moderating roles of algorithmic monitoring and algorithmic fairness. Findings Under low algorithmic monitoring, work gamification reduces surface emotional labor and thereby lowers burnout. Under high monitoring, this indirect effect weakens. Under high algorithmic fairness, gamification promotes deep emotional labor and thereby reduces burnout; under low fairness, the deep emotional labor pathway disappears. Practical implications Platforms should balance monitoring intensity and fairness while using gamification to improve gig workers’ experience and well-being. Originality/value By treating algorithmic features as contextual moderators, this study extends understanding of how gamification affects gig workers’ emotional labor and identifies differentiated pathways linking gamification to burnout.
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Are you morally included? The mediating effect of subordinates' task performance and organizational citizenship behavior between political skill and abusive supervision
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Journal of Managerial Psychology Teng Liu, Steven Kilroy August 05, 2026
Performance Research Methods Networks Leadership Selection & Assessment
Purpose This study aims to investigate whether and how subordinates' political skill influences abusive supervision via task performance and organization-directed organizational citizenship behavior (OCB-O). Design/methodology/approach A 3-wave survey of 224 employees was conducted at a Chinese transportation firm and the hypotheses were tested with multi-level Bayesian structural equation modeling in Mplus. Findings The findings reveal that individual political skill is not directly associated with abusive supervision but indirectly relates to abusive supervision through increased OCB-O. The mediating effect of task performance is not significant. Originality/value This study examined the direct relationship between political skill and abusive supervision, and using moral exclusion theory, explored the unique underlying mechanisms involved, i.e. through the performance outcomes of task performance and OCB-O. While subordinates' performance is typically considered as an outcome of abusive supervision, this study positions it as a key mediator linking political skill to abusive supervision.
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Workplace coaching at the crossroads: Introduction to the special issue
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Gil Bozer, Silja Kotte, Almuth McDowall August 04, 2026
Training & Development Performance Job Attitudes Organizational Culture Organizational Change
Abstract This short editorial introduces the special issue in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology ‘Workplace coaching at the crossroads’. We outline how workplace coaching has grown into a preferred helping relationship to support workers and leaders in navigating increasingly complex and ever‐changing workplaces. Our definition of coaching frames it as a facilitative, dialectical process that enables positive change and outcomes for the coachee. We summarize that meta‐analytic evidence tells us that coaching ‘works’ by documenting positive impacts on a range of outcomes, including performance, learning and wellbeing. Yet, we know far less about how coaching works and the role of coaching contexts. The five contributions in this special issue address the coaching process. They are methodologically diverse and include both longitudinal and observational data. We posit that the meta‐theme for coaching to work is the coachee's active engagement in shaping the coaching process as they work towards proximal (e.g., self‐awareness) and more distal (e.g., long‐term goals) outcomes. We conclude with a call for future research to address the coaching context by considering micro‐level (e.g., stakeholder alignment), meso‐level (e.g., organizational strategy, coaching culture) and macro‐level considerations (e.g., societal culture, technological transformation).
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Bittersweet Symphony: A Music Theory Approach to Stakeholder Dissonance and Value Creation
Journal of Management Skyler Dana Clark-Hamel, Lena Bischoff, Zhongyuan Sun August 04, 2026
Organizational Culture Performance Networks Selection & Assessment Training & Development
Stakeholder theory emphasizes value creation for diverse stakeholders, yet it offers limited guidance for understanding how value is created when a firm’s and a stakeholder’s values differ. We reconceptualize firm–stakeholder relationships as dynamic processes in which value accumulates through the engagement and resolution of value dissonance. Drawing on tonal harmony from music theory, we develop a framework that treats dissonance not as a defect to be eliminated but as generative pressure for value creation. The framework evaluates value dissonance at the issue level and aggregates tension at the relationship level, enabling systematic assessment of where firms can productively intervene. We then theorize three mechanisms through which firms convert dissonance into value: managerial intervention, structural resolution, and timing. Our central insight is that value emerges from the sequenced movement between tension and release. This dynamic perspective advances stakeholder theory by explaining how value can be created across the full stakeholder portfolio, including relationships that firms might otherwise avoid, suppress, or attempt to force into alignment.
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Agreeable team members wanted: personality configurations of high-performing individuals in global virtual teams
Journal of Managerial Psychology Faruk Şahin, Fatih Çetin, Duysal Aşkun, Ernesto Tavoletti, Vas Taras, et al. August 04, 2026
Teams Individual Differences Research Methods Performance Leadership
Purpose Although much research has been done on the Big Five personality traits that underpin individual performance in teams, knowledge of the interdependencies of traits for individual performance is rather limited and especially so in the new ordinary workplace represented by global virtual teams (GVTs). The purpose of the study is to explore how personality traits combine in configurations that lead to high individual performance in GVTs. Design/methodology/approach Based on the configurational perspective, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis on a sample of 697 students nested within 171 GVTs to examine the influence of the personality traits on peer-rated individual performance. Findings Three distinct configurations of traits, each including agreeableness, account for high levels of individual performance in GVTs. Agreeableness, which is found to be a necessary condition, emerges as a favorable trait in GVTs and is associated with high individual performance across three different combinations with other personality traits. Originality/value This study offers a deeper understanding of the interplay between personality traits and their causal conditions for high individual performance in GVTs, thereby enriching the literature. It contributes to the growing body of literature on virtual team dynamics, providing insights that can help organizations optimize team composition and performance in the increasingly digital workplace.
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More than years? Salience of age differences in leader-member relationships and its relation to LMX, work engagement, and emotional exhaustion
Journal of Managerial Psychology Vera MĂźller, Thomas Rigotti August 04, 2026
Job Attitudes Leadership Networks Research Methods Health & Well-Being
Purpose Prior research on age differences in leader-follower dyads has primarily focused on objective age differences while giving less attention to whether such differences are psychologically salient. This study examines how the salience of age differences between leaders and followers is associated with leader-member exchange (LMX) and, in turn, employees' work engagement and emotional exhaustion. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on self-categorization theory and the similarity-attraction paradigm, we conducted a time-lagged survey with two measurement points four weeks apart, using a sample of 504 employees. Findings Results show that the salience of age differences is significantly and negatively associated with LMX. In turn, LMX is positively associated with work engagement and negatively associated with emotional exhaustion. LMX statistically mediates the indirect associations between the salience of age differences and both outcomes. Practical implications The findings suggest that organizations should address the salience of age differences in leader-follower relationships, rather than focusing solely on objective age differences when managing age-diverse workforces. Originality/value This study advances research on age differences in leader-follower dyads by shifting the focus from objective age differences to the salience of age differences and its associations with leader-member exchange, work engagement, and emotional exhaustion.
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A Commentary on Hong & Thoroughgood (2025): Applying Theoretical Nuance to the Social Comparison Process Upon Witnessing Coworkers’ Gratitude Expression Toward Supervisors
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Group & Organization Management Amanda S. Patel, Truit Gray, Haeseen Park, Joseph Yestrepsky August 04, 2026
Training & Development Leadership Selection & Assessment
commentary, social comparison, gratitude expressionHong and Thoroughgood provide important insight into social comparison processes around observing gratitude expressions at work.We argue that a more nuanced application of social comparison theory (SCT) challenges some of their assumptions and simultaneously sheds light on a more specified
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The Effectiveness of Machine Learning in Detecting Fakers Across Different Assessment Methods and Multiple Algorithms
Journal of Personnel Psychology N. Mazza, Mohamed Zeid August 04, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Selection & Assessment Training & Development Research Methods Performance
Abstract: Faking, a prevalent phenomenon in noncognitive assessments, is a concern because of its potential negative effects on criterion-related validity. This study contributes to the faking detection literature by examining the effectiveness of machine learning (ML), specifically 8 algorithms, to classify fakers based on their responses on one of four assessment methods (single-statement Likert, single-statement true/false, a rate situational judgment test, and a rank situational judgment test). Using an MTurk sample ( N = 583), faking was manipulated in a between-subjects design. Classification accuracies comparable to those of previous studies were achieved for two of the four assessment methods albeit by different algorithms indicating that the effectiveness of the ML approach should not be blindly assumed and multiple algorithms should be considered.
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How the boss’s “right hand” becomes the group’s “go-to”: Leader–member exchange as a heuristic cue for everyday asks.
Journal of Applied Psychology Emma Frank, Fadel K. Matta, Olympia M. Nakos, Jessica B. Rodell August 03, 2026
Selection & Assessment Performance Leadership Research Methods Individual Differences
Prevailing theories suggest that workplace needs are allocated by matching specific problems to specific coworkers-either by approaching those best suited to address a given issue or by approaching others based on interpersonal relationships and affect. Yet, in most workplaces, coworkers can identify a particular employee who seems to function as the "go-to" person across people and problems, a pattern that is difficult to explain through careful matching alone. Our work addresses this puzzle by examining how such roles can heuristically emerge and become concentrated on certain employees. Drawing on qualitative data, we argue that workplace go-tos can be a byproduct of repeated, everyday help-seeking decisions in which reliance on decision shortcuts leads some employees to become the disproportionate answer when coworkers ask themselves, "Who can help me with this?" Integrating research on heuristics in decision making, we propose that coworkers often rely on an imitate-the-successful shortcut, substituting the complex judgment of who is best positioned to help with the simpler question, "Who does the boss go to?" Over repeated decisions, this process may bias selection toward employees with strong leader-member exchange relationships, inadvertently casting them as go-tos. We argue that while this concentration of reliance should facilitate performance, it also creates conditions that wear employees down. We test these predictions across three studies-an experiment, a vignette-based decision task, and a field study with employee-coworker-supervisor triads. Our work introduces a new lens for understanding how important roles may emerge through cue-based, heuristic processes and complicates assumptions about the uniformly positive consequences of high-leader-member exchange relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Ethics of care leadership expressions during a high-strength event: A gendered analysis of combative versus constructive policy suggestions during the Israel–Hamas war.
Journal of Applied Psychology Alexander D. Stajković, Kayla Stajkovic, Jenny M. Hoobler, Frederick P. Morgeson August 03, 2026
Social Responsibility Leadership Diversity & Inclusion Research Methods Selection & Assessment
The Israel-Hamas war is a protracted high-strength event, marked by peaks of conflict and sustained tension, that tests how leaders function in a context with competing national interests, moral strain, and wide-reaching human and political consequences. Guided by event system theory and ethics of care leadership (ECL), we track how members of the Israeli Knesset express their leadership during this conflict. We analyze 5.2 million words spoken by 152 legislators across 140 Knesset plenary sessions over 16 months. Using natural language processing, we score and classify 4,143 discursive policy suggestions as constructive (repair oriented) or combative (zero sum). We find that (a) expression of ECL is associated with a higher likelihood of constructive suggestions, (b) women express more ECL than men, and (c) men's care expression rises during peak-strength months, narrowing-but not eliminating-the gender gap in ECL. These findings position ECL expression as both a stable orientation and a context-responsive discursive behavior, clarifying who is most likely to express ECL and when constructive suggestions are likely to emerge as event strength fluctuates. Results advance event system theory by specifying a morally grounded ECL response in high-strength contexts, and they inform practice by identifying care-led discourse as a lever for constructive policy during volatile times. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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First Impressions at Work: A Meta‐Analytic Review
Personnel Psychology Junhui Yang, Brian W. Swider, Bingjie Lu, Kaidi Wang, T. Harris August 03, 2026
Training & Development Performance Selection & Assessment Conflict Artificial Intelligence/Technology
ABSTRACT First impressions are critical in shaping work‐related outcomes and social judgments in organizational contexts. However, research has generated conflicting findings and left unanswered questions about their dimensional structure, antecedents, consequences, and temporal stability. We meta‐analyzed 204 independent samples from 145 studies to address these ambiguities and generate a stronger foundation for future theoretical development. Results reveal that perceivers tend to form broad evaluations of displayers rather than unique, narrow impressions, as conceptually distinct impression dimensions demonstrated consistently positive and often sizable cross‐dimension correlations. While perceivers rely on a range of informational cues to form first impressions, certain types (i.e., communication cues) exert a more consistent impact than others (e.g., content cues). First impressions strongly predicted both achievement‐oriented and relational outcomes, and although these effects diminished somewhat over time, they remained highly durable even at longer durations (i.e., more than a month). Taken together, these findings help reconcile competing theoretical perspectives on first impressions and provide numerous insights for more coherent theorizing and precise applications in organizational settings.
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“Oh my gosh, you’re too young to be sick!”: Unpacking the consequences of workplace mistreatment for young adults with disabilities.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Angela M. Dionisi, Kathryne E. DuprĂŠ, Audrey Hodgins August 03, 2026
Research Methods Selection & Assessment Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being Teams
Despite comprising a significant percentage of the workforce and being susceptible to mistreatment, young adults with disabilities have not been widely focused on in the workplace mistreatment literature. In this study, we take an intersectional approach as we examine the specific workplace mistreatment-related ramifications that this cohort of the workforce experiences. Twenty-five semistructured interviews were conducted to better understand the outcomes of workplace mistreatment among young adult employees who self-identify as having a disability. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. Results suggest that workplace mistreatment may shape the identities, relationships, career-related attitudes and behaviors, and health outcomes of this group of employees. This study offers insights into how workplace mistreatment impacts an understudied and underemployed group of employees. By considering multiple axes of power and privilege, namely, disability and age, this study allows for the consideration of the potentially unique experiences encountered by employees who face multiple barriers to their flourishing at work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Better with age? Exploring age and interpersonal emotion regulation in the workplace
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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Aishwarya Verma, Karen Niven, Nicola Thomas August 03, 2026
Performance Motivation Training & Development Networks Research Methods
Workplaces are inherently emotional spaces, where employees often attempt to influence others’ feelings. While effective interpersonal emotion regulation benefits relationships and performance, older workers’ capabilities in this domain remain poorly understood. Drawing on lifespan development theories, we hypothesize that employees’ motivation to regulate others’ emotions, their use of adaptive regulation strategies, and their effectiveness at implementing interpersonal emotion regulation are all positively related to age. We further explore the moderating role of two contextual factors: the intensity of workers’ own negative emotions and their perceived closeness to the target of regulation. We tested hypotheses using a pre-registered, five-day experience-sampling study with 219 participants who completed surveys twice daily during their working day. Results show that age is positively associated with motivation to regulate others’ emotions and perceived implementation effectiveness but is unrelated to strategy use. Exploratory analyses indicate an indirect effect of age on perceived effectiveness of interpersonal emotion regulation, via motivation. Neither relational closeness nor negative emotion intensity moderates the effects of age. These findings extend lifespan theories to the interpersonal domain, suggesting that ageing is more strongly related to why, rather than how, employees regulate others’ emotions, positioning motivation as a critical yet overlooked strength of older workers.
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Technology Implementation and Job Crafting: A Process Model Built From a Systematic Literature Review
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Group & Organization Management Renjie Sun, Pengji Wang, Kim‐Lim Tan, Shaoyuan Chen August 03, 2026
Job Design Artificial Intelligence/Technology Performance Job Attitudes Teams
With the rise of Industry 5.0, effective collaboration between humans and technology has become critical for both employees’ well-being and organizational performance. Job crafting represents a key mechanism through which employees can achieve human-centricity in this context. This systematic literature review aims to examine the current state of research on the role of technology in job crafting and to identify emerging trends and future directions in the field. Following the PRISMA model, we conducted a systematic literature review of 40 journal articles published between January 2001 and April 2024. Our results show the publication trend, the key publication outlets, research contexts in terms of countries, professions, technologies being examined, and methodologies being employed. A thematic analysis reveals four overarching themes in this research field: (1) a process-based model of how technology influences job crafting, (2) the factors that influence employees’ job crafting in technology implementation work context, (3) the ways in which employees use technologies for different forms of job crafting, and (4) the outcomes of employees’ engagement in job crafting under technology implementation context. Under each theme, we provide recommendations for future research agendas in terms of theory, context, and methodology framework.
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Understanding the Individual-Level Consequences of Strikes: A Systematic Review and Future Research Directions
Journal of Management Denise Vesper, Cornelius J. KĂśnig August 01, 2026
Training & Development Research Methods Performance Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being
Strikes are a recurring workplace phenomenon that affects strikers, their families, and managers, but also others such as commuters. To date, studies examining individual-level effects of strikes have been scattered across different fields of study. This systematic literature review summarizes studies on these effects and on how unaffected third parties, such as the public, evaluate strikes. We conducted searches in four databases. The 72 included studies show that strikes can have detrimental effects, for example, on psychological health, but these can be decreased with resources such as social support. Based on the existing literature, we developed the comprehensive strike aftermath framework as an overarching framework in which we incorporate avenues for future research. We conclude that research on this work phenomenon is still scarce and future research on long-lasting effects of strikes on managers’ and employees’ health and work attitudes is needed.
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Breaking or Reinforcing the Cycle: The Role of Work-Family Identity Integration in Systemic Inequities
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Organizational Psychology Review Hwayeon Myeong, Eden B. King August 01, 2026
Health & Well-Being Diversity & Inclusion Networks Organizational Culture Organizational Change
This article introduces the Cyclic Theory of Work-Family Identity Integration (WFII), which conceptualizes WFII, the perceived compatibility between work and family identities, as a critical mechanism for understanding and addressing inequities. Identity integration involves subjective sensemaking, but social environments tied to social identities, such as parenthood, gender, and cultural background, impose unique challenges to integrating work and family identities. We theorize that WFII reflects both individual differences and intergroup disparities, with the latter perpetuating structural biases through a self-reinforcing cycle. Crucially, WFII's malleability as a form of subjective sensemaking makes it a promising pathway for reducing inequities. By leveraging evidence from psychological interventions that create lasting effects, this framework underscores the complementary role of psychological approaches alongside contextual changes. Merging insights from work-family research, identity integration theories, and intervention scholarship, this theory offers strategies to disrupt inequities and promote equitable work and family outcomes across diverse populations. Plain Language Summary Title How Perceived Compatibility of Work and Family Identities Reproduces Inequality
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Testing After ChatGPT: Aggregate Change in Applicant Assessment Scores
International Journal of Selection and Assessment Alise Dabdoub, R. Pool August 01, 2026
Selection & Assessment Research Methods Organizational Change Artificial Intelligence/Technology Performance
ABSTRACT The widespread adoption of large language model (LLM) chatbots has raised concerns about their potential misuse in high‐stakes employment contexts, including cheating on pre‐employment assessments. Although prior research demonstrates that LLMs can achieve desirable scores on cognitive and personality tests, little evidence exists regarding whether their availability has produced measurable score inflation in real‐world selection settings. The present study examines whether mean scores on commonly used pre‐employment assessments shifted following the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022. Using large archival samples of job applicants, we analyzed trends in scores on two cognitive assessments and one personality assessment. We also examined age as a moderator given evidence that younger individuals are more frequent users of LLM technologies. Regression and time‐trend analyses indicated statistically significant but practically negligible changes in assessment scores following ChatGPT's release. Across cognitive and personality measures, effect sizes were near zero and inconsistent in direction, providing no meaningful support for widespread LLM‐assisted cheating. Overall, results suggest that despite concerns about LLM misuse, there is currently little evidence of large‐scale score inflation in operational pre‐employment testing contexts.
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How Do “Funny” Job Postings Affect Job Seekers' Reactions? Humor and Job Attractiveness
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International Journal of Selection and Assessment David C. Cheng, Miaojia Huang, Rajiv Amarnani, Alex Eapen, Patrick D. Dunlop August 01, 2026
Selection & Assessment Research Methods Training & Development Performance HR Systems & Talent Management
ABSTRACT Organizations sometimes embed humor into recruitment materials such as job postings to try to attract talent. Our research investigates the efficacy of humorous job postings. On the one hand, humorous job postings may be beneficial because the use of humor may signal positive organizational attributes. On the other hand, humorous job postings could also inadvertently convey a lack of seriousness in the organization's HR practices. Integrating signaling theory with benign violation theory, we develop and test a theoretical model of the competing signals that humor in job postings might send. We conducted three experiments using single stimulus approaches (Studies 1 and 2) and stimulus sampling approaches (Study 3). Studies 1 and 2 showed a negative effect of humor on job attractiveness, whereas Study 3 showed no statistically significant effect of humor on job attractiveness. Consistently across studies, humorous job postings led potential job seekers to expect the organization to display lower levels of procedural justice. These findings suggest exercising caution when using humor in recruitment materials.
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Getting to the Heart of Conflict: Emotional Acknowledgment Reduces Negative Emotional Expression Intensity and Improves Intrateam Conflict Resolution
Organization Science Christina Bradley, Elizabeth Wolf, Lindred L. Greer July 31, 2026
Conflict Motivation Training & Development Teams Selection & Assessment
During mixed-motive intrateam conflicts, wherein members must balance cooperative and competitive motives, negative emotions, such as anger and frustration, often arise and derail effective conflict resolution. To help teams navigate this important challenge, we develop and test theory about how, why, and when responses to expressed emotions can enable effective resolution of intrateam conflict. Although prior intrateam conflict research has shown that managing these emotions is critical for conflict resolution, the focus has been on broad conceptualizations of team emotion management that aggregate across discrete emotion-response strategies with both potentially divergent effects (e.g., acknowledgment, reframing, and suppression) and different actors (e.g., members and leaders). This aggregation masks tensions and trade-offs between different strategies and actors, and it offers team members limited guidance on how to respond to emotions during conflict. Therefore, responding to calls to focus on discrete emotion-response strategies, we identify emotional acknowledgment (i.e., the verbal recognition of another member’s emotional display) as a particularly effective strategy within intrateam conflicts because it addresses simultaneously cooperative motives by helping expressers feel seen and valued and competitive motives by creating an opportunity for expressers to advocate for their unique interests and priorities. We propose and find in two laboratory experiments of 496 three-person teams that emotional acknowledgment, particularly when coming from team leaders, reduces the intensity of negative emotional expression, thereby improving team conflict resolution. Funding: The authors thank the University of Michigan and INSEAD for research funding. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2024.19578 .
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Harnessing Academic Science for Corporate Technology: Interpersonal Networks and Absorptive Capacity
Organization Science Sam Arts, Lee Fleming, Elena Veretennik July 31, 2026
Networks Artificial Intelligence/Technology Job Attitudes Training & Development Individual Differences
If firms conduct less scientific research internally and yet increasingly rely on science for innovation, how do they gain access to external scientific knowledge? To examine the role of interpersonal networks among corporate inventors and academic scientists in facilitating scientific knowledge transfer from academia to industry, we construct a social network encompassing nearly the entire population of life science academic scientists and corporate inventors listed on U.S. patents. To isolate the influence of interpersonal connections from the inherent characteristics and commercial potential of scientific discoveries, we leverage paper twins—scientific papers with nearly identical findings published around the same time by independent academic teams—and analyze their citations in corporate patents. Although academic science is often viewed as a public good, our findings highlight the role of close interpersonal connections—within two degrees of separation—in harnessing academic science for corporate innovation. Moreover, corporate inventors’ ability to leverage these connections depends critically on their own active engagement in scientific research, as well as the alignment of their scientific expertise with the academic knowledge they seek to integrate. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2025.20539 .
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Worker Repositioning and Technological Change: Evidence from an Online Labor Market
Organization Science Shun Yiu, Robert Seamans, Manav Raj, Teng Liu July 31, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Organizational Change Training & Development Selection & Assessment Performance
Technological change reshapes labor markets not only by changing labor demand but also by altering labor supply, as workers reallocate effort across tasks and opportunities in response to technological advances. Yet research has focused more on demand-side effects than on how workers themselves adapt. In this research, we examine worker repositioning on a large online labor market following the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. We argue that the launch of ChatGPT reduced expected returns to labor in exposed skill domains and develop and test a series of hypotheses regarding how this shock is associated with participation, horizontal positioning, and vertical positioning among workers on the platform. Using proprietary data on incumbent freelancers and a difference-in-differences design that leverages cross-sectional variation in pre-period AI exposure and skill-level, we show that freelancers more exposed to AI shift away from prior domains and reorient bidding toward higher-value contracts. In contrast, high skill-level freelancers, who face greater adjustment costs, are less likely to reduce participation on the platform, reposition across domains, and move upmarket. These findings highlight how technological shocks reshape labor markets through supply-side adaptation and how domain-specific human capital constrains worker responses.
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The Paradox of Inventors’ Job Security
Organization Science David Wehrheim, Eduardo Melero, Neus Palomeras July 31, 2026
Research Methods Selection & Assessment Motivation Health & Well-Being Leadership
This paper investigates how job security affects the types of innovations generated by corporate inventors. By increasing inventors’ prospects of remaining with their current employer, job security strengthens their incentives to invest in firm-specific technological knowledge. Thus, while employment protection provides inventors with a safety net to fail that could facilitate exploration, it instead drives them to produce innovations that draw more heavily on internal technologies and are less novel. We test this argument using matched employer-employee data constructed from patent records. To examine inventor-level responses to increased job security, we exploit the staggered adoption of wrongful-discharge laws across U.S. states between 1980 and 1999. Using cross-state variation over time in a difference-in-differences framework, we find that increased job security leads inventors to produce innovations that rely more intensely on their firms' technologies, are less novel, and generate higher private value to their employers.
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A Multidimensional Model of Entrepreneurial Career Success: A Literature Review and Research Agenda
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Journal of Management Maria S. Tamontseva, Scott E. Seibert, Jos Akkermans, Wouter Stam July 31, 2026
Measurement & Psychometrics Performance Training & Development Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being
People are choosing to pursue entrepreneurship as a career at increasing rates; yet, we lack an overarching conceptualization of entrepreneurial career success. Instead, scholars rely on a fragmented set of measures and outcomes, limiting cumulative knowledge about the factors that shape persistence and long-term success in entrepreneurial careers. To address this gap, we integrate career success and entrepreneurship research to develop a multidimensional model of entrepreneurial career success. Drawing on an empirically validated multidimensional framework from career literature, we organize the variety of individual success measures that have been used in the entrepreneurship literature, distinguishing entrepreneurial career success from related constructs such as venture performance and well-being. We further identify entrepreneurship-specific dimensions, including legacy and venture satisfaction, that reflect the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial careers and extend existing career success models. Using the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework, we review antecedents of entrepreneurial career success and suggest patterns of relationships with different objective and subjective success dimensions. We conclude by presenting an integrative model of antecedents, mechanisms, and boundary conditions to guide future research on entrepreneurial career success.
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Revisiting the Relationship Between Job Insecurity and Work Engagement: The Moderating Roles of Contract Type and Trait Negative Affectivity
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Human Resource Development Quarterly Hui‐Hsien Hsieh, Kuo‐Yang Kao July 31, 2026
Research Methods Job Attitudes Networks Individual Differences Social Responsibility
ABSTRACT This study proposes and tests a curvilinear effect of job insecurity on work engagement, while also examining the moderating roles of employment contract type (permanent vs. temporary) and trait negative affectivity on this relationship. Utilizing two waves of time‐lagged data from a sample of 397 participants (273 permanent and 124 temporary employees) in Taiwan, the results reveal a U‐shaped association between job insecurity and work engagement, with contract type and trait negative affectivity moderating this association. Specifically, for temporary employees or those with high trait negative affectivity, the relationship follows a U‐shaped pattern, indicating stronger curvilinear effects. In contrast, for permanent employees or individuals with low trait negative affectivity, the association is initially negative but levels off and becomes statistically nonsignificant beyond the inflection point, suggesting a plateauing trend rather than a pronounced curvilinear effect. This study contributes to the job insecurity literature by offering a more nuanced understanding of the conditions that shape this curvilinear relationship. Additionally, this study offers practical insights for organizations by underscoring the need to tailor engagement strategies to different employee groups, such as providing support to temporary workers and individuals with high trait negative affectivity, to sustain work engagement under uncertain employment conditions.
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Leader ambidexterity in goal orientation and team adaptive performance.
Journal of Applied Psychology Lisa Dragoni, Christina Hymer, Soohyun Yoon, Jeffery A. LePine, Todd Woodruff, et al. July 30, 2026
Performance Teams Training & Development Motivation Leadership
Team goal orientation-that is, team members' desire for learning or performance (or both) in achievement settings-has been treated as a stable team characteristic with benefits and costs that are contingent on the teams' circumstances. From this view, team effectiveness is thought to be a function of a team possessing the "right" goal orientation in the "right" situation. However, because no single goal orientation is conducive to effective team functioning across the range of complex and changing circumstances that teams may face, a more fluid view of goal orientation may be helpful in understanding how goal orientation in teams may foster team adaptive performance. Specifically, we propose that teams whose work involves complexity and change may adapt more effectively as a result of leader-initiated shifts in goal orientation as circumstances evolve. To examine this possibility, we develop and examine the concept of leader ambidexterity in goal orientation-defined as a leader's capability to switch across different goal orientations in response to various situational demands. Using a scale measure we developed and validated for this research, we explore the role of leader ambidexterity in goal orientation as a predictor of team adaptive performance using field data from 79 teams at a premier U.S. military academy. We found that team adaptive performance was higher in teams whose leaders scored higher on ambidexterity in goal orientation. This effect was robust even when accounting for stable leader and team-level goal orientation variables. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of this work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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The power of relational energy: mitigating incivility's toll on attention to detail
Journal of Managerial Psychology Na Zhu, Xiaobu Liu, Chiou‐Shiu Lin July 30, 2026
Research Methods Selection & Assessment Training & Development Networks Performance
Purpose Drawing on the job demands-resources model, this study aims to investigate how patient incivility affects healthcare professionals' attention-to-detail behavior via ego depletion and how relational energy moderates this process. Design/methodology/approach An experience sampling method and a scenario-based experiment were employed to test the proposed model. Findings Studies 1 and 2 show that relational energy attenuates both the positive relationship between patient incivility and ego depletion and the indirect effect of patient incivility on attention-to-detail behavior through ego depletion; these relationships are stronger when relational energy is low. Practical implications Organizations can mitigate the effects of patient incivility by managing professionals' self-regulatory capabilities and fostering relational energy through encouraging professional-supervisor interactions and conducting targeted supervisor selection and training. Originality/value This study provides a nuanced understanding of how and why patient incivility predicts professionals' attention-to-detail behavior via ego depletion and identifies relational energy as both a theoretical and practical buffer against incivility.
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Faking Does Not Impair the Validity of Construct‐Focused Situational Judgment Tests: An Experimental Study
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International Journal of Selection and Assessment Daniel Danner, Lydia Oeljeklaus, Stefan HĂśft July 30, 2026
Measurement & Psychometrics Selection & Assessment Individual Differences Performance Organizational Change
ABSTRACT This experimental study examined whether faking affected a construct‐focused situational judgment test (SJT) measuring self‐organization. Using a within‐subjects design, the SJT and a single‐statement self‐report were administered to employees of a federal agency who were students at a cooperative university affiliated with that agency ( N = 256), under two conditions: honest responding and faking good. The SJT used knowledge instructions (“How should one behave?”) and an expert‐based scoring method whereby participants' responses were compared with those of subject‐matter experts. Construct validity was assessed using correlations with Big Five personality traits; criterion validity was evaluated based on correlations with participants' grade point averages (GPAs). Faking changed scores substantially on the single‐statement self‐report ( d = 1.04) but only modestly on the SJT ( d = 0.25). Structural equation modeling revealed that the construct validity of the single‐statement self‐report was reduced under faking conditions, whereas that of the SJT remained stable, showing consistent associations with Conscientiousness and Agreeableness. The criterion validity of the SJT was unaffected or even slightly enhanced under faking conditions. Supplementary analyses using binary scoring replicated prior findings of stronger effects of faking on single‐statement self‐report than on SJT scale scores but showed no detrimental impact on validity. These results suggest that construct‐focused SJTs are less vulnerable to faking than are single‐statement self‐reports, thus supporting their application in high‐stakes selection contexts.
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Am I Just a Digital Puppet? Exploring the Impact of Electronic Performance Monitoring and Supervisor Monitoring on Employee Performance From the Perspective of Objectification Theory
Human Resource Management Lixun Zheng, Wen Cheng, Wenzhu Lu, Xiaoming Zheng July 29, 2026
Performance Leadership Artificial Intelligence/Technology Networks Selection & Assessment
ABSTRACT Electronic performance monitoring (EPM) has been widely used in organizations in the expectation of promoting performance. However, its effectiveness sometimes falls short of these expectations. Most previous studies have examined EPM's side effects from the perspective of psychological reactance, treating it simply as a monitoring stressor. To extend this literature, we draw on workplace objectification theory and propose that EPM fosters employees' perceived objectification by signaling objectifying cues, which in turn undermines employee job performance. Moreover, supervisor monitoring styles (observational and interactional) can either strengthen or weaken the relationship between EPM and perceived objectification. We tested our model using an online experiment with 199 US participants and a multi‐wave field survey with 294 Chinese employees, and all hypotheses were supported. Theoretically, this research complements the psychological reactance perspective in EPM research by introducing perceived objectification as a humanity‐related mechanism through which EPM may shape employee performance. We also advance workplace objectification theory by extending its scope from human–human interactions to human–technology interactions. Practically, we offer guidance on preserving employees' humanity while adopting technological and human monitoring to maintain performance.
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Ideology or Identity? CEO Political Party Affiliation and Conformity in Competitive Strategy
Academy of Management Journal Krishnan Nair, Eric Y. Lee July 29, 2026
Performance Training & Development Networks Organizational Culture Artificial Intelligence/Technology
Building on the premise that political party affiliation reflects one’s ideology and core values, various studies in the upper echelons literature have examined the link between CEO political party affiliation and decision-making. In contrast, recent work in political psychology suggests that party affiliation shapes behavior largely because it serves as a salient social identity. Taking a reconciliatory approach, the present work highlights the value of both perspectives in explaining the CEO’s orientation toward conformity. According to the ideology literature, Republicans display greater conformity than Democrats due to dispositional differences in how much they value conformity. On the other hand, the identity perspective suggests that both Democrats and Republicans strive to conform to co-partisans and distinguish themselves from counter-partisans. Integrating insights from both perspectives, we theorize that Republican CEOs generally display greater conformity than Democratic CEOs due to dispositional differences, but that the extent to which these dispositional tendencies translate to competitive strategy depends on the political composition of CEOs in a given industry. Finally, we draw on self-concordance theory to theorize about the performance implications of fit and misfit between CEO party affiliation and conformity. We find support for our predictions in a sample of S&P 500 firms from 2010 to 2019.
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At what Price? A Meta-analysis of experiments assessing the impact of leader pay on employees and stakeholders
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Leadership Quarterly Niklas K. Steffens, Ghassani Swaryandini, Kim Peters, Miguel Fonseca, Naomi Ellemers, et al. July 29, 2026
Research Methods Selection & Assessment Leadership HR Systems & Talent Management Performance
Over the last five decades, leader compensation has risen substantially, with the median CEO:worker pay ratio skyrocketing from 20:1 to around 268:1. This has raised concerns for both internal and external stakeholders. However, observational studies have difficulty isolating the causal impact of leader pay on employees and other stakeholders due to endogeneity issues. To address this, the present research synthesized findings from 23 experimental studies (11 third-person evaluative tasks, 7 first-person hypothetical scenarios, 5 immersive experiments) to examine how information about leader pay causally influences employee and stakeholder responses. Results indicate that higher leader pay has a significant negative effect on employee outcomes ( g = −0.53, 95%CIs [−0.68, −0.38], k studies = 12, n effect sizes = 83) as well as on external stakeholder outcomes ( g = −0.38, 95%CIs [−0.51, −0.26], k studies = 11, n effect sizes = 57). These negative effects did not depend on whether pay is presented in absolute terms or relative to employee pay. Counterintuitively, providing justification for high pay was ineffective in eliciting more positive responses. Dose-response analysis indicated that detrimental responses appear even at low pay ratios with no evidence of an incrementally compounding penalty. These findings highlight the need to do a better job of balancing the interests and demands of leaders with those of the broad range of stakeholders that they are notionally striving to lead.
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Silence hurts more among the entitled: Psychological entitlement amplifies the costs of workplace silence
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Wei‐Gang Tang, Christian Vandenberghe July 28, 2026
Job Attitudes Performance Training & Development Networks
Abstract Workplace silence has generally been studied from a social exchange perspective as a response to negative initiating actions. However, social exchange relationships involve ongoing transactional chains in which a given response may also serve as a new initiating event. Building on this perspective, we examine how a specific form of silence, supervisor‐directed improvement‐oriented (SDIO) silence, can function as a negatively valenced initiating event that carries forward into later employee responses. We specifically propose that SDIO silence undermines employees' felt responsibility for contribution, which in turn weakens positive, active social exchange responses. We argue that this process is stronger among employees high in psychological entitlement. Using a multi‐wave, multi‐source study of public sector employees ( N = 422), we find that SDIO silence reduces felt responsibility, which in turn weakens affective commitment, emotional job engagement, and promotive voice, and that these adverse effects are stronger for employees high in psychological entitlement. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice.
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Mixing Motives: Political Donations by Corporate Executives
Organization Science Benjamin Barber, Daniel Blake July 28, 2026
Motivation Training & Development Teams HR Systems & Talent Management Measurement & Psychometrics
What motivates corporate executives to make political donations? Scholars interested in political ideology generally assign expressive motivations to executive donations while CPA scholars view executives as largely strategic donors. This study reconciles these two contrasting perspectives by reconceptualizing executives as mixed motive donors who allocate their donations both strategically and expressively. To support this position, we construct the most comprehensive dataset to date on executive donations from 1980 to 2024 and develop a measure of mixed motive donations that reflects both expressive and strategic giving. Using non-executive donors as a counterfactual baseline of expressive donors, we provide evidence that bipartisan donations and donations to politically influential members of Congress are examples of strategic giving. We find that executives devote a larger share of their donations to strategic giving, driven by their role as executives. This supports the argument, rooted in resource dependence theory, that executives face professional incentives to donate strategically. However, we also find evidence that a non-trivial portion of executives’ donations are expressive, and that strategic giving varies across individuals and time. We find that variance in mixed motive giving can be explained partly by executives' compensation elasticity, firm size, political risk exposure and whether or not an executive is the CEO of their company. Overall, our analysis reveals that scholars should refrain from making uniform assumptions about executives’ motivations to donate, and view them as a varied group of mixed motive donors.
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Beliefs about the relationship between work and personal life: development and validation of three work-life belief scales
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Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Sabrina L. Speights, Lisa M. Leslie, Eden B. King, Elinor Flynn, Judith A. Clair July 27, 2026
Measurement & Psychometrics Training & Development Networks Individual Differences Health & Well-Being
Theory suggests work-life outcomes are shaped by three beliefs regarding how work and personal life relate to each other: fixed-expandable-pie beliefs (whether work and life compete with versus enhance one another), segmentation-integration beliefs (whether work and life operate as separate versus related domains), and work-life priority beliefs (whether work versus personal life takes precedence over the other domain). Yet no measure of work-life beliefs exists, which is an impediment to understanding their ability to advance the work-life literature. In 15 studies ( N = 6,568), using samples drawn from different populations (adults and students in the United States, adults with diverse cultural backgrounds in the United Kingdom, adults in Ghana, adults in South Korea), we develop measures of three work-life beliefs and document their utility for understanding the work-life interface. We find that work-life beliefs can be conceptualized as three or six dimensions, and that the measures have a replicable factor structure, are reliable, and have discriminant validity, in that they are distinct from other work-life constructs and beliefs about hard work and leisure. The work-life belief measures also have criterion validity; they contribute to understanding of work-life experiences and behaviors, both indirectly and directly. Our research advances the literature by providing insight into the nature of work-life beliefs and demonstrating their relevance for understanding the work-life interface. By developing measures, we also provide tools that can be used in future work to develop, test, and refine theory regarding the implications of work-life beliefs for understanding any number of additional phenomena.
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The Impact of Strategic Leaders’ International Experience on Organizations: An Integrative Review and Multilevel Framework
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Journal of Management Fei Qin, Klaus E. Meyer, Sabina Tasheva Nielsen July 27, 2026
Training & Development Research Methods Performance Teams Leadership
Internationally experienced business leaders bring distinct human capital, social capital, and cognitive schemas into organizations, influence strategic orientation through their decision-making, and in turn shape organizations’ strategies and performance. The impact of the international experience (IE) of an organization’s upper echelon has been studied in various bodies of management literature, varying in terms of the theoretical perspectives, conceptualizations of the IE construct, and outcomes considered. However, the effects are not straightforward with regard to which elements of IE affect which aspects of organizational dynamics, and how. This review integrates separate streams of organizational research to develop a more holistic understanding of the role of the IE held by strategic leaders such as chief executive officers, entrepreneurial founders, top management teams, and boards of directors, and its impact on organizational strategies and performance. We refine the conceptualization of the IE construct at multiple levels of analysis and explore cross-level mechanisms suggested by multiple theories to develop an integrative framework that links strategic leaders’ IE to organizational decisions, strategies, and performance. On this basis, we propose an agenda for future research.
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We work on our will, yet will we sustain? Documenting experiences of psychotherapists engaged in platform-mediated gig work
Journal of Managerial Psychology Sudipt Kumar, Marya Haque, Namita Ruparel July 27, 2026
Job Attitudes Social Responsibility Research Methods Selection & Assessment Health & Well-Being
Purpose To substantiate the evolving understanding of how digital platforms influence professional identity and clinical practice in the Indian mental healthcare sector, this study investigates the experiences of psychotherapists engaged in platform-mediated gig labour. It critically evaluates both the professional affordances and systemic challenges associated with this shift in the therapeutic work paradigm. Design/methodology/approach We employed a qualitative research design, and conducted in-depth interviews with 19 licensed Indian psychotherapists, who practiced on leading domestic teletherapy platforms. The participants were recruited purposively and snowballed until we achieved data saturation. Findings Broadly, our analysis revealed five key themes that include advantages and challenges of therapy provision through platform-mediated gig work, constraints on the therapeutic frame and career implications for therapists. These findings underscore the pressing necessity for legislative and organizational measures to protect both therapists and clients inside digital mental health frameworks, particularly in developing countries such as India. Practical implications Largely, the findings suggested measures include mandated credential verification, transparent pay structures and the introduction of community-driven supervision models that ensure professional quality, well-being and sustainability of practice. Originality/value This study is among the first to examine the experiences of psychotherapists engaged in gig-based digital platforms in the Global South. By centring Indian practitioners' voices, we offer novel insights into how platform-mediated mental health work reshapes professional identity and work trajectories, contributing meaningfully to debates on the gig economy and telehealth.
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Momentary energy management profiles: associations with energy, heart rate variability, and motivational states
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Journal of Business and Psychology Stacey L. Parker, Niamh Dawson, Nerisa Dozo, Hannes Zacher July 25, 2026
Motivation Research Methods Training & Development Health & Well-Being HR Systems & Talent Management
Abstract During work, employees use a variety of energy management strategies to conserve or recover their subjective energy, including microbreaks (e.g., socializing, walking) or work-related strategies (e.g., organizing, reflecting on meaning). Research is yet to examine how these strategies co-occur and the implications of different configurations. Moreover, little is known about other associated benefits of energy management, beyond energy. Thus, we paired experience sampling with ambulatory heart rate monitoring to collect hourly data on energy management strategies and outcomes (i.e., energy, stress regulation as indexed by heart rate variability, and motivational states including intrinsic motivation and work mastery). Ninety-one employees provided hourly data throughout a workday ( M = 6.62 occasions). Multilevel latent profile analysis revealed a five-profile solution of momentary energy management strategies within hours of the workday: active strategizing (6%), moving (5%), socializing (15%), meaningful organizing (9%), and passive strategizing (65%). Outcome analyses revealed the active, moving, and socializing profiles were better for vitality than the meaningful organizing and passive profiles. The moving profile was best for heart rate variability, compared to meaningful organizing, active, and passive profiles. Finally, the active profile was better than all other profiles for motivational states. Overall, results suggest the combination of microbreaks and work-related strategies is associated with more energy and motivational states, whereas distinctive use of physical microbreaks is linked to energy and physiological stress regulation, and socializing is related to energy. Use of some work-related strategies (i.e., organizing, meaning) seems unrelated to outcomes when not paired with microbreaks.
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How and when remote workdays impact employee daily social need fulfilment
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Vera M. Schweitzer, Anne Burmeister, Laura Venz, Fabiola H. Gerpott, Ulrike Fasbender, et al. July 25, 2026
Remote Work Training & Development Diversity & Inclusion Research Methods Performance
Abstract Hybrid working, as a now‐common flexible work arrangement, transforms how employees connect with each other and requires updated theorizing to understand its social implications. Grounded in interaction ritual theory, we examined how and when remote (vs. onsite) workdays impact employees' social need fulfilment, namely, coworkers making employees feel that they belong and that their uniqueness is valued. We propose that remote (vs. onsite) workdays distance employees from basic, natural and potentially energizing interaction rituals such as coworker small talk, with negative consequences for employees' fulfilment of uniqueness and belongingness needs at work. We further argue that organizations and their members can mitigate the negative social effects of remote (vs. onsite) workdays by implementing social virtual meeting rituals that serve relevant psycho‐social functions for mutual attunement with coworkers. Two experience sampling studies found support for our theorizing. Remote (vs. onsite) workdays had negative indirect effects on employees' uniqueness and belongingness at work via coworker small talk and relational energy. The negative indirect effect was buffered by social virtual meeting rituals—a contextual feature of virtual communication. Our research adds a psycho‐social lens to hybrid work research and sheds light on how organizations can foster inclusion by fulfilling employees' social needs.
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Do family rituals help or hurt? The ripple effect of family rituals on employee change-oriented behaviors.
Journal of Applied Psychology Wan Jiang, Xueting Qin, Daan van Knippenberg, Zhigang Song, Bingqian Liang, et al. July 23, 2026
Performance Training & Development Motivation Diversity & Inclusion Research Methods
Despite growing evidence that family life spills over into the workplace, little is known about how family rituals relate to employee behaviors at work. Drawing on interaction ritual chains theory, we develop a dual pathway-moderated mediation model linking family rituals to employee change-oriented behaviors. We propose that family rituals are positively associated with employee change-oriented behaviors via the resource pathway (emotional resources and vigor at work) but negatively associated with them via the motivation pathway (family identity salience and family motivation). Additionally, employees' need for social inclusion strengthened both mediation pathways. Results from a multisource, time-lagged survey of 465 employees and 240 supervisors supported our model. We discussed theoretical implications for the literature on family rituals and change-oriented behaviors, as well as practical implications for organizations and managers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Project success–failure experiences and leader development: Examining career transitions through role transition theory.
Journal of Applied Psychology Yeun Joon Kim, Andreas W. Richter July 23, 2026
Training & Development Leadership Performance Teams Networks
Drawing on role transition theory, we examine the effects of project success-failure experiences on the development of leader mindsets and subsequent team performance outcomes, comparing different career transition and nontransition periods: (a) the transition from education to work, (b) the transition into a first formal leadership role, and (c) the nontransition period between these transitions. Using a decade-long field study of 132 team leaders in an East Asian fashion design company, we find that project success-failure experiences during the transition from education to work strongly predict the development of leaders' regulatory focus mindsets. Specifically, project success fosters a promotion focus mindset, while project failure fosters a prevention focus mindset. These mindsets, in turn, predict team outcomes: a promotion focus mindset enhances team creativity, while a prevention focus mindset improves routine performance. However, project success-failure experiences during the transition into a first leadership role do not exhibit similar effects. We discuss contributions to the leader development literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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One Mistake, Two Standards: An Investigation of Gendered Evaluations of Leaders’ Task and Relational Mistakes
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Journal of Business and Psychology Stefanie Krauth, Martin P. Fladerer, Melissa M. Hehnen, Dieter Frey July 23, 2026
Performance Diversity & Inclusion Leadership
Female leaders still have to work harder to be seen as effective as male leaders (e.g., Kim et al., 2022 ; Rudman & Phelan, 2008 ). At the same time, recent high-profile cases suggest that women are also evaluated more strictly when showing ineffective leadership behaviors, as in the controversial case of misconduct involving former Max Planck director Nicole Boivin (e.g., Abbott, 2021 ; Von Bredow, 2021 ). Susan Trumbore, herself a director at Max Planck Institute, stated: “Female scientists in leadership positions are publicly accused and punished for misconduct in much higher percentages than their male peers” (Von Bredow, 2021 , para. 12).
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More hats than hours? Examining the associations between role sequence patterns, well‐being, demographics and work‐related characteristics across two countries
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Herman Y. Paryono, Thomas A. de Vries, Jessica de Bloom, Hendrik Johan Van De Brake July 23, 2026
Networks Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being Research Methods
Abstract Work‐nonwork role transitions are known to affect well‐being, yet most research has examined these transitions as isolated events. We adopted a temporal structure perspective to examine common patterns of daily role transitions using sequence analysis based on the order, duration, timing and frequency of role engagement. Study 1 (UK Time Use Survey data, N = 1036) identified three common sequences: Conventional Workers (traditional 9‐to‐5 structure), Blenders (more integrated role transitions) and Work‐First Schedulers (early and extended work activities). Blenders reported lower general mental health than Conventional Workers. Study 2 (US Time Use Survey data, N = 1186) again identified Conventional Workers and Blenders. Instead of Work‐First Schedulers, we identified Evening Workers, who start work late and extend work activities into the (late) evening. Evening Workers reported lower meaningfulness and greater sadness than Conventional Workers. Our findings reveal both cross‐national consistency and context‐specific variation in daily role sequences. The presence of shared patterns across samples underscores common rhythms in work‐nonwork role engagement. Meanwhile, the emergence of unique context‐specific patterns appears to stem from differences in occupational characteristics, industry contexts and pandemic timing. Our study advances micro‐role transitions research by capturing the unfolding nature of daily roles and their implications for well‐being.
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Make the Alliance Personal: A Dependence Framework of Managerial Personal Tie Activation in Alliance Management
Journal of Management Han Jiang, Xuan Sun, Yi Peng July 23, 2026
Networks Individual Differences Training & Development Organizational Culture HR Systems & Talent Management
In this study, we explore an intriguing yet understudied question: Would top managers decide to activate personal ties to manage their firms’ alliances? We address this question by synthesizing the insights of the research on personal tie activation and resource dependence theory to develop a nuanced theoretical framework on the mechanisms underlying top managers’ personal tie activation decisions in alliance management. We highlight that the interdependence features between two alliance partner firms (i.e., mutual dependence, power imbalance, interpartner competition, and the interactions thereof) together shape the partner firms’ relational dynamics in the value creation and value appropriation in their alliance. Accordingly, these features determine the potential benefits and costs for top managers of the partner firms to activate their personal ties to manage this alliance, both for their firms and for themselves. We draw empirical evidence from a field study with 244 alliances between Chinese firms and an experimental vignette study with 212 real-world managers in China. Results of our analyses support our predictions, with a few intriguing exceptions. We derive valuable implications for theory and practice.
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Making Words Count: Computational Linguistics in Management Research
Journal of Management Joseph Simpson, Richard A. Hunt, David M. Townsend, Judy Rady, Elham Asgari, et al. July 23, 2026
Training & Development Leadership Networks Measurement & Psychometrics
In recent years, a rapidly growing number of management scholars are using computational linguistics (CL) to analyze vast corpora of naturally occurring organizational language. Yet the rapid adoption of CL methods has outpaced the development of shared standards for linking theoretical constructs, linguistic data, and computational measurement. We synthesize 353 articles published in leading management journals for 2013–2025, identifying four recurring challenges shaping the credibility of CL-based research: misalignment between constructs and textual corpora, unnecessary model complexity, the opacity of large language model workflows, and insufficient transparency in reporting. Building on these patterns, we develop four integrative design principles—construct-language fit, minimal sufficient complexity, LLM sensitivity and auditability, and disclosure-as-assessability—and identify key research implications that reposition CL as a theoretically consequential lens for management scholarship.
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The complex effects of job complexity: A meta-analysis of job complexity and employee outcomes.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology David Holman, Hend Gabr, Walaa Saad ElKhalifa, Anthony Rafferty July 23, 2026
Performance Research Methods Training & Development Health & Well-Being
= 121 effect sizes), analysis confirmed job resource-complexity to be positively associated with task performance, learning, and well-being and negatively associated with job strain, whereas job challenge-complexity was positively associated with task performance, learning, well-being, and job strain. A lack of data precluded analysis of job hindrance-complexity. Our study advances theoretical understanding of job complexity, provides the first empirical synthesis of different types of job complexity and employee outcomes, and shows that the effects of job complexity differ according to the type of job complexity. The article concludes by drawing out implications for theory, empirical research, and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Reducing the Shirom–Melamed Burnout Measure: Development and validation of nine-item and three-item short forms.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Jesse S. Michel, Kendall Mcgoey, Nicole Shifrin, Faith A. Shannon, Lauren E Postier, et al. July 23, 2026
Measurement & Psychometrics Training & Development Health & Well-Being Selection & Assessment Networks
Job-related burnout is a central concern in occupational health psychology, yet practical constraints often limit the use of comprehensive measures. The 14-item Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure (SMBM-14) is widely used and grounded in a three-facet symptom framework consisting of physical fatigue, cognitive weariness, and emotional exhaustion, but its length can be prohibitive in multiconstruct surveys and repeated-measures research. Across nine samples organized into four phases, we developed a nine-item short form (SMBM-9; three items per facet) and a three-item ultra-brief form (SMBM-3; one item per facet). Item reduction and structural results supported the intended three-facet structure of the SMBM-9 and the selection of a one-item-per-facet SMBM-3 composite. Internal consistency estimates were high for the SMBM-9 and lower, as expected, for the SMBM-3; both forms nevertheless showed high convergence with the SMBM-14 and established burnout measures. Across cross-sectional, panel, and daily diary designs, the brief forms reproduced the expected pattern of associations with work stressors, affective and distress-related constructs, and work and health outcomes, with the SMBM-9 tracking the SMBM-14 closely and the SMBM-3 showing modest differences consistent with its brevity. Additional longitudinal and within-person findings supported the usefulness of the brief forms in repeated-measures contexts, including high convergence with the SMBM-14 and similar relations with day-level work demands. These findings support the SMBM-9 as the preferred brief substitute when researchers want balanced coverage of the SMBM-14 facets, whereas the SMBM-3 is likely to be the more useful option when brevity itself is the primary objective and assessment space is severely constrained. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Making deep acting sustainable: a diary study of the reciprocal relationship between deep acting and personal accomplishment
Journal of Managerial Psychology Songuk Choi July 23, 2026
Social Responsibility Networks Research Methods Individual Differences Selection & Assessment
Purpose To resolve the “double-edged sword” of deep acting, this study examines the daily “gain spiral” between deep acting and personal accomplishment and whether perspective-taking ability moderates this process. Design/methodology/approach A 10-day diary study was conducted with 60 early childhood educators (596 observations). A multilevel model was used to test the reciprocal and cross-level moderating effects of perspective taking. Findings Daily deep acting predicted subsequent personal accomplishment, which in turn predicted future deep acting on the following day. This positive cycle was stronger among employees with higher levels of perspective taking. Originality/value This study moves beyond unidirectional views of emotional labor by empirically testing a reciprocal, self-sustaining model. By identifying perspective taking as a key moderator, this study offers a novel ability-based explanation within the emotional labor literature, providing a dynamic framework for how deep acting can become a sustainable psychological resource.
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Rethinking food at work: an examination of structural and social constraints and resource loss across the work-home interface
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Journal of Business and Psychology Brent N. Reed, Alyssa K. McGonagle July 22, 2026
Training & Development Performance Selection & Assessment Individual Differences Health & Well-Being
Abstract Although food-related behavior has become a topic of growing interest in organizational research, it is typically studied as a matter of individual choice about food content. In this study, we expand this conceptualization by examining the temporal, structural, and social contexts in which food-related decisions unfold. Based on an inductive analysis of interviews with workers managing type 2 diabetes, we examine how structural and social constraints at work influenced workers’ capacity to make and enact food-related decisions, including what, when, where, and how to eat. Applying tenets of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory in the final stages of our analysis, we show how workplace conditions can function as a resource caravan passageway, shaping workers’ access to several interrelated personal resources (e.g., time, energy, and willpower) critical to making and enacting these decisions. Drawing from participants’ accounts, structural and social constraints at work contributed to recurring cycles of resource loss across the work-home interface, leaving workers increasingly vulnerable to future threats. Beyond broadening the conceptualization of food-related behavior in organizational research, our findings extend work design theory by highlighting the need to account for how workplace conditions affect workers’ capacity to manage personal needs within and around work systems. We also offer an empirical elaboration of COR theory by illustrating how resource loss cycles unfold in everyday experiences across the work and home domains. We conclude by highlighting practical strategies organizations can adopt to support workers’ capacity to make and enact food-related decisions and promote well-being and performance at work.
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Heading home: The role of commute duration and strain in role transition and recovery
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Matthew M. Piszczek, Kristie McAlpine July 21, 2026
Health & Well-Being Job Attitudes Networks Individual Differences Artificial Intelligence/Technology
Abstract Commuting is an inescapable part of working for most employees and is often seen as a burdensome and stressful chore. However, boundary theory suggests that commutes play an important part in the transition between work and family domains and facilitating opportunities for psychological recovery after work. Using daily surveys of 80 car commuters representing 356 evening commutes, we examine the link between commute characteristics (duration and strain) and transition and recovery processes (detachment and relaxation) during the work‐to‐home commute. We also examine whether boundary management preferences shape one's susceptibility to daily variations in commute characteristics. We further link these commute transition and recovery processes to emotional exhaustion at the end of the commute. Results show that daily commute characteristics predict whether individuals engage in role transition and experience recovery during the work‐to‐home commute, which in turn predict post‐commute emotional exhaustion, but that individual differences in boundary management preferences shape the relationship between commute characteristics and transition and recovery experiences during the commute.
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An Unattainable Emotional Advantage? Supervisors' Perceptual Biases in the Relationship Between Emotional Understanding Ability and Performance Ratings for Female Employees
Journal of Organizational Behavior Hanbo Shim, Myeong‐Gu Seo, Joo Hun Han, Sirkwoo Jin July 21, 2026
Performance Networks Individual Differences Teams Diversity & Inclusion
ABSTRACT Empathy is increasingly valued at workplaces as it facilitates interpersonal relationships, collaboration, and team functioning. Accordingly, organizations increasingly observe and recognize employees' emotional understanding (EU) ability—a key foundation of empathy—as an important dimension of individual merit in performance evaluations. We note that, however, supervisors' gender stereotypes may constrain whether EU ability is recognized properly, particularly for female employees. Drawing on dual‐process models of social cognition, we theorized that the female empathy stereotype—the belief that women are inherently more empathetic than men—leads supervisors to attribute female employees' EU ability to gender‐typical traits rather than to individual merit. As a result, the supervisors' female empathy stereotype weakens the link between observed emotional intelligence (EI) ability and job performance ratings. Across a video vignette experiment (Study 1) and a field study (Study 2), we found that the relationship between supervisors' perceptions of EU ability and their ratings of job performance was consistently weaker for female than for male employees. We conducted another vignette experiment (Study 3) to test three‐way interactions with two moderators (i.e., employee gender and raters' female empathy stereotype) and found that supervisors' female empathy stereotype attenuated the relationship for female employees but not for males. Our findings extend research on gender stereotypes, empathy, and EI by demonstrating how a widely shared gender stereotype can discount female employees' valuable emotional abilities.
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The Anatomy of Earnings Conference Calls: An Integrative Framework for Management Research
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Journal of Management Matthew Mount, GĂśkhan Ertug, Wei Shi, Tengjian Zou July 21, 2026
Performance
The use of earnings conference calls in management research has exploded over recent years, yet insights remain fragmented due to differing assumptions about how calls should be analyzed and interpreted. To synthesize this work, we review 207 articles across management, accounting, and finance journals and map how prior studies have drawn on specific call components—structural attributes, prepared remarks, and question-and-answer exchanges. Building on this anatomical mapping, we inductively identify three epistemic roles through which earnings calls have been mobilized in management research: communicative disclosure (“window”), performative communication (“stage”), and communicative trace (“fingerprint”). Each role reflects distinct assumptions about how earnings calls reveal, enact, or encode managerial and organizational phenomena, and each highlights different opportunities for future theorizing. By making these inferential logics explicit, our framework provides a conceptual foundation for more precise and cumulative use of earnings conference calls as a data source in management scholarship and outlines promising areas for future research.
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Digital Institutions and Occupational Fraud
Journal of Management Tingting (Rachel) Chung, Pratyush Nidhi Sharma, Chih‐Chen Lee, Weilei Shi, Mike W. Peng, et al. July 21, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Training & Development Performance Research Methods
How do a country’s digital institutions influence the magnitude of occupational fraud within firms? Leveraging and extending the institution-based view, we address this understudied question by conceptualizing digital institutions as a new genre of institutions that condition the deterrence calculus within firms. We define digital institutions as the foundational structures and resources that shape a country’s digital environment along three key dimensions: (1) digital infrastructure, (2) digital governance, and (3) digital innovation. While strengthening digital institutions has become a priority for policymakers worldwide, the unintended consequences of doing so, such as the potential to facilitate occupational fraud within firms, remain insufficiently understood. Using a unique dataset of 3,974 cases from 41 countries, we find that digital infrastructure is linked to higher fraud magnitude in firms, whereas digital governance is associated with lower occupational fraud magnitude. Our analysis further uncovers the nuanced ways in which digital institutions condition the effectiveness of firm-level internal controls. Overall, policymakers must recognize that digital institutions are a “double-edged sword,” as developing digital infrastructure without reinforcing digital governance can negate efforts to control occupational fraud at the firm level.
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Team diversity, status, social identity management strategies, and team performance.
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Journal of Applied Psychology Prithviraj Chattopadhyay, Daan van Knippenberg, Elizabeth George July 20, 2026
Teams Performance Diversity & Inclusion Training & Development Networks
Relational demography research focuses on how status differences among dissimilar team members influence their interactions. Team diversity research focuses on the performance of diverse teams. We integrate these two bodies of work to change the way in which team diversity is conceptualized by explicitly considering the relative status of members of diverse teams as well as the attributes of the status hierarchy within those teams. Team members' social identity management strategies-their ways of dealing with status differences-affect the likelihood that team processes engender information elaboration, thus affecting team performance. We elucidate why status has an impact on team processes (a) due to the implications of the strategies team members use to gain and maintain status and (b) as a consequence of the proportion of lower and higher status members in the team. In conjunction with explicating our model, we discuss the efficacy of moderators of the relationship between team diversity and performance as well as implications for research on faultlines. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Offering paid sick and family leave is not enough: Leave supportive supervisor behavior training improves policy use, health, and work outcomes.
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Journal of Applied Psychology Ellen Ernst Kossek, Shalene J. Allen, Katie M. Lawson, Leslie B. Hammer, Todd Bodner, et al. July 20, 2026
Training & Development Health & Well-Being Leadership Job Attitudes Turnover & Retention
Paid sick and family leave policies provide employees the right to request paid time-off for personal illness or family demands.Yet, they can be underutilized, and their effects show mixed results.Research has underaddressed the disconnect between formal and informal work-family support, clarifying the role of supervisors as contextual resources supporting paid leave.Integrating research on job demands-resources theory, family supportive supervisory behaviors, and work-family policies, we evaluated training designed to increase supervisors' leave supportive supervisor behaviors (LSSB), defined as supervisor behaviors perceived as encouraging employees to access, use, and value paid leave as a resource for managing nonwork time-off demands.We conducted a 6-month field study at two U.S. universities, with random assignment to training (N = 293 managers, 630 employees), and wait-list control conditions (N = 252 managers, 293 employees).The intervention included voluntary online training, behavior self-monitoring, and a webinar.Compared to the control organization, employees in the trained organization reported higher LSSB, greater family leave use, higher job satisfaction, and stronger organizational commitment.Results showed that the intervention was more beneficial for women (higher commitment), employees with childcare demands (higher job satisfaction, improved general health, higher sick leave use), and sandwiched (both child and older adult/ elder) caregivers (higher job satisfaction).Post hoc longitudinal analyses identified that the intervention increased supervisors' role modeling behaviors, which predicted higher employee job satisfaction and LSSB.We provide future implications on the criticality of pairing supervisor training with paid leave to strengthen supervisor support as a contextual resource to improve policy use, health, and work outcomes.
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Synthesizing research on leadership behaviors: Semantically validating a taxonomy using large language models and examining the nomological network with a second-order meta-analysis.
Journal of Applied Psychology 张宇辰 Zhang Yucheng, Shanshan Zhang, Zijun Ke, Wenrui Cao, M Wang, et al. July 20, 2026
Measurement & Psychometrics Networks Research Methods Leadership Selection & Assessment
Despite the expansion of research on leadership behaviors (LBs) over the past decades, this field faces challenges related to construct redundancy, which impedes theoretical integration and empirical accumulation. To address this issue, we conducted two complementary studies to systematically examine a six-category taxonomy of LBs (i.e., task-oriented, relational-oriented, change-oriented, value-based and moral, passive, and destructive LBs, collectively referred to as the TRCVPD taxonomy), which maps diverse LBs onto a unified framework. In Study 1, we compiled a database comprising measurement items from 48 LBs scales and leveraged large language models and subject-matter experts to assess whether measurement items of previously unclassified LBs semantically corresponded to the theoretical definitions of the TRCVPD taxonomy of LBs. Specifically, we were able to semantically match 41 of the 48 LBs to the TRCVPD taxonomy. Based on the findings of Study 1, Study 2 conducted a comprehensive second-order meta-analysis, synthesizing 109 meta-analyses based on more than 6 million participants. In particular, we evaluated the nomological network of the six LBs by meta-analytically estimating their relations with antecedents and outcomes. In addition, we used dominance analyses to further compare the relative importance of each LB category in explaining leadership outcomes. Together, these two studies present integrative findings that offer an overarching theoretical framework and empirical foundation for understanding the taxonomy and nomological structure of LBs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Managing Social Impact: An Integrated Approach and Research Agenda
Organization Science Aseem Kaul, Jiao Luo, Jasjit Singh July 20, 2026
Training & Development Social Responsibility Selection & Assessment Performance Motivation
Strategy and management research has increasingly focused on understanding the role organizations play in society, offering valuable guidance for measuring social impact. In this article, we build upon multiple streams of this literature to propose an integrated approach for managing social impact of initiatives. Starting with a general definition of “impact” as the difference between the states of the world with and without the initiative, we propose a two-step approach for managing its social impact. The first is an analysis step, where the consequences of the initiative are evaluated descriptively in terms of (a) goal realization, that is, the extent to which it achieves its stated goals for contributing to society; (b) spillovers, that is, the extent to which it affects other financial or societal outcomes; and (c) alternative initiatives, that is, its effectiveness relative to alternative means of organizing to achieve the same goals. The second is an assessment step, where the initiative’s full set of benefits and costs from the first step is normatively assessed using (and potentially triangulating across) one or more of three methods: (a) using Pareto improvement as the basis for comparison, (b) calculating net impact using a single metric for aggregation, and (c) evaluating the nature of trade-offs involved (relative magnitude, equity, certainty, and agency). In addition to integrating relevant streams of existing work into a systematic approach for managing social impact, we offer an agenda for further research applying concepts and insights from management research to questions related to social impact.
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When breastfeeding meets work: Impact of daily action regulation at the breastfeeding–work interface among breastfeeding working mothers.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Yanwei Shi, Julan Xie, Zhiqing E. Zhou, Luo Ya July 20, 2026
Performance Networks Research Methods Training & Development Health & Well-Being
Work and breastfeeding responsibilities can often interfere with each other for breastfeeding working mothers who pump breast milk at work. While prior research has explored how contextual social support and organizational policies help these mothers manage work-breastfeeding challenges, the active self-initiated strategies breastfeeding working mothers can use to navigate these roles have been largely overlooked. This study addresses a critical gap in how breastfeeding working mothers can proactively regulate their actions to achieve desirable outcomes. From an action regulation perspective, we proposed the concept of action regulation at the breastfeeding-work interface (AR-BW; a domain-specific form of proactivity defined as breastfeeding working mothers' proactive and goal-directed behaviors to balance responsibilities in breastfeeding and work domains) and examined the associations of AR-BW with breastfeeding-related and work-related outcomes specifically for mothers who pumped breast milk at work. We conducted a daily diary study with 156 breastfeeding working mothers over 10 workdays to examine whether and how their daily AR-BW is related to their work- and breastfeeding-related outcomes. Multilevel path analyses showed that breastfeeding working mothers' daily AR-BW was positively associated with their next-day job performance and breastfeeding-work balance self-efficacy through increased breastfeeding-work enrichment and decreased breastfeeding-work interference. Moreover, the negative relationship between AR-BW and breastfeeding-work interference was stronger for breastfeeding working mothers perceiving higher levels of breastfeeding stigma. Our findings highlight the active, agentic role of breastfeeding working mothers in managing breastfeeding-work demands through self-regulation, extending beyond prior research on external supports. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Moderating role of occupational context in the relationship between emotion regulation and burnout syndrome: A structural equation modeling (SEM) meta-analytic review.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Hajin Lim, Gi‐Eun Jang, Gippeum Park, H.S. Lee, Sang Min Lee July 20, 2026
Research Methods Networks Health & Well-Being Measurement & Psychometrics Selection & Assessment
= 29,053; 351 effect sizes). Drawing on Grandey and Gabriel's (2015) integrated model of emotional labor, we examined whether occupational context moderates the associations between two ER strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) and burnout. We also tested additional moderators, age and gender. Results indicated that the associations between ER and burnout were significantly moderated by occupation settings but not key demographic characteristics. Reappraisal generally exhibited a protective effect, particularly in teaching professions. In contrast, suppression was positively associated with burnout, with stronger links in public safety than in teaching and health care. These findings underscore the importance of occupational context in shaping how ER strategies relate to burnout. The study also offers practical implications for symptoms-based interventions and highlights limitations to guide future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Ethical leadership and unethical pro-organizational behavior: an attributional perspective on perceived leader hypocrisy and dispositional cynicism
Journal of Managerial Psychology Nasib Dar July 20, 2026
Leadership Social Responsibility Research Methods Performance Individual Differences
Purpose Drawing on attribution theory, the present study examines the conditions under which ethical leadership affects employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior. From a psychological perspective, it explores the mediating effect of perceived leader hypocrisy and the moderating effect of employees' dispositional cynicism on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach A multi-wave, multi-source survey design was employed to collect data from employees and their immediate supervisors within the banking sector in Pakistan. Findings Ethical leadership demonstrates a negative association with employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior. This effect is mediated by perceived leader hypocrisy, as ethical leadership reduces perceptions of hypocrisy by influencing employees' attributional judgments regarding leaders' moral sincerity and behavioral integrity. Employees' dispositional cynicism diminishes both the direct and indirect effects, thereby weakening the impact of ethical leadership. Originality/value This study integrates attribution theory with leadership and personality perspectives to provide a psychologically grounded explanation of how leader behavior and follower interpretive tendencies jointly influence unethical pro-organizational behavior in managerial contexts.
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Influencing mechanism of employee taking charge behavior on leader empowering behavior
Journal of Managerial Psychology Jianfeng Jia, Baipeng Sun, Huixia Li, Weipeng Liu, Y Zhang July 20, 2026
Research Methods Leadership Training & Development Selection & Assessment Performance
Purpose Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, this study examines how employee taking charge behavior influences leader empowering behavior. Specifically, we investigate the dual mediation roles of challenge and threat appraisals and the moderating effect of leader power distance orientation on these relationships. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected at three time points from 315 enterprise leaders across multiple industries in China. Hypotheses were tested using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 24.0 software and the PROCESS 3.5 macro. Findings The results show that under low power distance orientation, taking charge behavior fosters challenge appraisal, promoting empowerment. Conversely, under high power distance orientation, it triggers threat appraisal, reducing empowerment. Moreover, challenge and threat appraisals mediate moderated effects, forming a mediated moderation relationship. Originality/value By integrating cognitive appraisal theory into leader–member interaction research, this study explicates the double-edged sword effect of employee taking charge behavior on leader empowering behavior and identifies leader power distance orientation as a key boundary condition. These findings enrich the literature on leader empowering behavior antecedents and offer novel insights into how employees can influence leadership practices.
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Well‐being labour: How surveillance architecture converts organizational well‐being programmes into a source of harm
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Pankaj C. Patel, Yasin Rofcanın, Rıfat Kamaşak, Maksim Belitski July 18, 2026
Motivation Performance Training & Development Health & Well-Being Social Responsibility
Abstract Despite significant corporate investment, workplace well‐being interventions show no significant benefit, and some leave participants worse off than non‐participants. Existing theoretical accounts explain why programmes fail; none predict why they sometimes actively harm. We introduce wellbeing labor , the cognitive and emotional effort expended performing, displaying, or reporting psychological well‐being for organizational audiences and data systems under structural compulsion rather than authentic generation. We develop a two‐stage mechanism linking mandatory well‐being programmes and individual‐level surveillance to degraded authentic flourishing. Stage 1 establishes that surveillance converts well‐being participation from autonomously motivated to externally regulated. Stage 2, the paper's core contribution, argues that chronic behavioural inauthenticity under institutionally instrumentalized surveillance corrupts the psychological substrate of authentic flourishing across both organizational and personal contexts, resisting recovery through resource restoration alone. Four propositions derive from this mechanism, culminating in the central claim: Well‐being programmes produce positive outcomes under low surveillance and null or negative outcomes under high surveillance. Theoretical contributions, intervention implications and the ethics of organizational well‐being monitoring are discussed.
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Challenging the Gender Status Quo: How Low Gender System Justification Predicts Pro‐Women Leadership Bias
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Crystal L. Hoyt, Jeni L. Burnette, Eve Ridenhour, Julia Griffin July 17, 2026
Diversity & Inclusion Selection & Assessment Leadership Artificial Intelligence/Technology Motivation
ABSTRACT We offer a new perspective on gender‐based biases in leadership evaluations by examining individual differences in beliefs about the gender status quo. Specifically, across three studies ( N = 756), we tested how gender system‐justifying beliefs interact with leader gender to impact leadership evaluations. In Study 1, participants evaluated a CEO's leadership based on their decision to appoint either a female or a male leader. In Studies 2 and 3, participants evaluated the leadership of female and male candidates and made a hiring decision. Individuals with weaker system‐justifying beliefs evaluated female leaders and CEOs who appointed female leaders more positively than their male counterparts. Additionally, in making hiring decisions, they were more likely to select the female over the male candidate. In contrast, participants with stronger system‐justifying beliefs did not display gender‐based bias. To assess whether these effects reflect a system‐challenging motive, in Studies 2 and 3, we tested three beliefs central to gender system‐challenging motivation—supporting greater gender equity in leadership, recognizing an unjust gender status quo, and believing the system should be changed. These system‐challenging motivations predicted the same pro‐female pattern as low gender system justification and, in Study 3, remained predictive when modeled simultaneously with system justification. In summary, across all three studies, participants with weaker system justifying beliefs consistently displayed bias in favor of women leaders—an effect partially explained by system challenging motivations.
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Pregnancy Discrimination Is a Family Affair: Examining Crossover Effects in Couples
Journal of Organizational Behavior Samantha C. Paustian‐Underdahl, Ashley Mandeville, Samantha L. Jordan, Asia A. Eaton, Shane Yanes July 17, 2026
Performance Diversity & Inclusion Motivation Health & Well-Being Selection & Assessment
ABSTRACT Research consistently finds that workplace discrimination is harmful for employees. However, less is known about how these stressful experiences may affect employees' family members. This question is particularly salient in the context of pregnancy discrimination, given rising claims and the prevalence of dual‐earner couples. Across two studies, we examine the consequences of pregnancy discrimination for both expectant mothers and their spouses. First, in a four‐wave study of expectant heterosexual couples, we test whether pregnancy discrimination affects not only women's career motivation and exhaustion via changes in work self‐efficacy, but also crosses over to influence their spouses' career and health outcomes. Second, to replicate and strengthen the causality of the work self‐efficacy crossover effect, we conduct a pre‐registered vignette experiment where we manipulate women's work self‐efficacy and compare spouses' work self‐efficacy across experimental groups. Importantly, the vignettes were informed by qualitative interviews with 20 male spouses, which revealed how women's workplace experiences and self‐efficacy are communicated and observed within couples during pregnancy. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
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The Generative AI Dilemma in Knowledge-Intensive Teams
Academy of Management Review Jessica Reif, Jonathon N. Cummings July 17, 2026
Teams Artificial Intelligence/Technology Performance Training & Development Networks
In knowledge-intensive teams, collaborative interactions among teammates have historically served as the primary means through which members access task-relevant information, advice, and feedback. Generative artificial intelligence (AI), however, now offers members an alternative source of these resources. We develop a multilevel theory that proposes team members who are proficient with generative AI are more likely to perceive the resources it can offer as functionally equivalent to those they can access through their teammates. In turn, we propose that some members will shift their knowledge-seeking interactions to generative AI. As this substitution behavior accumulates within a team, the team’s collaboration network is less likely to foster the critical emergent states that support team effectiveness. The key insight of our theory is a dilemma for knowledge-intensive teams: generative AI can boost team performance by helping members to work more efficiently, but a lack of collaboration among teammates can offset these gains and undermine team satisfaction.
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Steady as She Goes: Remote Work Benefits Daily Goal Progress Through Reduced Energy Variability
Organization Science Andrew Bennett, Kathleen R. Keeler, Emily D. Campion, Sheila Keener July 17, 2026
Remote Work Motivation Performance HR Systems & Talent Management Training & Development
As the prevalence and allowance of remote and hybrid work evolves, research has shown consistently mixed findings about how work location is related to worker energy and perceptions of daily performance. We aim to resolve this ambiguity by integrating affective events theory with ideas about emotion dynamics to develop new theorizing explaining why energy variability, rather than mean energy level, is an important predictor of daily goal progress. We test our hypotheses using a sample of 219 employees from one organization allowing remote and hybrid work, capturing individual hourly energy levels for five consecutive workdays (4,812 hourly observations). Our results show that on days when employees work from home (versus onsite), they have lower energy variability, which enables them to make more progress toward their goals and achieve their goals at a faster rate than expected that day. Moreover, we show that this effect is stronger when employees have higher remote work intensity (i.e., work from home more often). Our findings are robust to a number of controls (e.g., children at home, work location choice, industry). Practically, workers experience about 33% less energy variability on days working from home compared with onsite, and a one-point reduction in energy variability yields 26% higher goal progress and 31% higher goal progress velocity. Overall, this study advances theory on the relationship between daily work location, human energy, and goal progress and has immediate practical implications for employees, teams, and organizations as they continue to navigate the remote and hybrid era of work. History: This paper has been accepted for the Organization Science Special Issue on Remote and Hybrid Work: Transforming People and Organizations in a New Era. Funding: This work was supported by a Tippie College of Business Research Excellence Grant at the University of Iowa.
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Behavioral Intervention Construal: A Framework for Understanding Inferences from Behavioral Interventions
Organization Science Joseph Reiff, Jonathan E. Bogard July 17, 2026
Organizational Change Training & Development Performance Motivation HR Systems & Talent Management
Organizations frequently use behavioral interventions—including incentives, messaging campaigns, and modifications to choice architecture—to influence people’s behavior. However, recent evidence suggests that such interventions often have inconsistent effects across implementations. To understand this variability, we build on the idea that interventions are not simply levers for changing behavior, they also signal useful information to decision makers. For example, when an option is set as the default, people may infer that it is recommended by the organization—an inference that can increase the likelihood that people stick with that option. However, when people perceive that defaults benefit the organization, those defaults may be rejected. Here, we propose a framework to better understand the effects of behavioral interventions by identifying the inferences they prompt people to draw. In developing this framework, we first characterize the defining features of behavioral interventions that determine how they are psychologically experienced. These features implicate five fundamental needs, which guide decision makers’ information-seeking processes. From these needs, we derive a principled typology of inferences drawn by decision makers in response to behavioral interventions, bringing together scattered evidence for these inferences from across the behavioral sciences. The resulting framework entails predictions about when specific inferences will arise and how these inferences influence the overall effects of behavioral interventions. Utilizing the framework, we provide a tool for enhancing intervention design. Taken together, the current research offers an integrative framework for advancing theory on behavioral interventions while also outlining actionable insights for organizations hoping to promote behavior change at scale.
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Staying Alive! Entrepreneurial Human Capital and Resilience of New Ventures
Organization Science Pontus Braunerhjelm, Emma Lappi July 17, 2026
Turnover & Retention Selection & Assessment Training & Development Research Methods Individual Differences
Survival of new ventures has been shown to exhibit considerable heterogeneity both across and within industries. Some of the explanations for these differences have been attributed to firm size, organizational structure, and management practices. We add to this literature by showing how differences in employees’ abilities and their knowledge domain relate to survival. More precisely, we focus on the role of employees who in the past started and managed firms, referred to as an organization’s entrepreneurial human capital (EHC). Theoretically, we adopt an eclectic approach, while the empirical analysis is based on longitudinal register data for Sweden from 1997 to 2016. This allows us to identify EHC for all new ventures over the past 20 years. After controlling for a large number of confounders, our baseline results strongly suggest that a higher share of employees with entrepreneurial backgrounds is associated with an increased probability of new venture survival. We identify the following mechanisms through which former entrepreneurs contribute to survival: an enlarged resource base, magnified by learning from longer spells in entrepreneurship; an organizational fit conducive to absorbing and utilizing EHC; and a human capital fit in which entrepreneurial competencies align with the competence requirements of new ventures. We argue that our findings have both theoretical and practical implications for recruiters and managers and provide valuable insights for policymakers.
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From team captains and line leaders to helpful and caring: gendered leadership prototypes in childhood
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Journal of Business and Psychology Erika Hernandez Acton, Janaki Gooty July 16, 2026
Leadership Teams Diversity & Inclusion Selection & Assessment Training & Development
Abstract Gender inequality in leadership remains a grand societal challenge. Prior research suggests that implicit leadership prototypes drive this inequality through unequal emergence of women and men to leadership positions. Organizational efforts to address this gap are typically with working adults, which may be too late to yield change, as cognitive biases that shape leadership perceptions begin developing in childhood. We therefore examined gendered leadership prototypes across elementary school (K–5) in 215 children using children’s drawings of a leader and a follow-up interview. Task-oriented and relational leadership content was coded in two ways: a categorical coding and a strength-based, dimensional coding. Findings showed a same-gender bias in leader selection, with 84.0% of girls drawing female leaders and 70.2% of boys drawing male leaders ( χ 2 (1, N = 204) = 58.69, p < 0.001). Children also showed gendered leadership attributions across both coding approaches. Female leaders were more often associated with relational attributions and male leaders with task-oriented attributions in categorical coding, χ 2 (1, N = 161) = 25.45, p < 0.001, and strength coding, with female leaders receiving lower task-oriented scores, OR = 0.18, 95% CI [0.09, 0.33], p < 0.001, and higher relational scores, OR = 6.59, 95% CI [3.46, 12.93], p < 0.001. Grade-level analyses suggested that these attribution patterns were more differentiated in later grades, especially for task-oriented attribution strength (OR = 0.67, 95% CI [0.45, 0.99], p = 0.044). Together, these findings suggest that leadership attributions may already be gendered in childhood, underscoring the importance of early intervention.
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Ambivalence at the Helm: How the Positive Effect of Ambivalence to Lead on Leader Integrative Complexity Affects Leaders' Effectiveness
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Liat Eldor July 16, 2026
Leadership Performance Individual Differences Research Methods
ABSTRACT We study the phenomenon of ambivalence to lead, characterized as leaders' experience of mixed feelings (positive and negative) toward their leadership position. We do so by integrating the beneficial role of dualities with the affect‐as‐information theory. Our model shows that the duality involved in ambivalence to lead activates leaders' integrative complexity — the ability to identify and integrate different perspectives on the same subject—which in turn increases their effectiveness as leaders. This positive effect is altered by the leader's perceptions of structural dynamics of the workplace: organic vs. mechanistic. The former allows for greater individual discretion and action than the latter, facilitating an environment in which ambivalence to lead can further activate leader integrative complexity and, in turn, leader effectiveness. To examine our model, we conducted two studies using different research designs (experiment and field) and various organizational settings from three data sources (managers, their supervisors, and objective raters) at three time points. The findings provide substantial support for our thesis, demonstrating that ambivalence to lead enhances the effectiveness of leaders (through leader integrative complexity) and that this indirect positive effect is stronger (vs. weaker) under an organic (vs. mechanistic) structure.
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Market Entry by Divisionalized Firms: Where Experience Resides and When It Is Used
Organization Science Vikas A. Aggarwal, Mo Chen, Brian Wu July 16, 2026
Performance Networks Selection & Assessment Artificial Intelligence/Technology
Research on market entry shows that firms tend to grow by entering adjacent markets based on their prior experience. Much of this work implicitly treats knowledge embedded in the firm as uniformly available for strategic action. We argue instead that, in divisionalized firms, the effect of experience depends on where it resides across organizational units, which in turn shapes whether it becomes behaviorally relevant in evaluating entry opportunities. We posit that divisionalization, defined as a structural configuration in which a firm partitions activities into multiple operating units under a corporate umbrella, is associated with broader exposure to opportunities but weaker use of accumulated experience. Consequently, at the firm-level, divisionalization is associated with higher entry rates but a weaker relationship between firm-wide experience and entry. At the unit-level, entry is more strongly associated with experience located in the focal organizational unit than with experience residing in sister units. We further identify organizational conduits associated with the use of distributed experience, including recurring lateral interaction and integrative attention at the corporate center. We test our predictions using U.S. defense procurement following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Our findings show that within-firm organizational boundaries shape whether firms act on what they already know, shifting the study of market entry from experience accumulation to experience use.
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Corrigendum: Skill variety, agentic work behaviors and thriving at work: a longitudinal investigation
Journal of Managerial Psychology July 16, 2026
Job Design Research Methods
It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article, Fu X, Zeng W (2026), “Skill variety, agentic work behaviors and thriving at work: a longitudinal investigation”. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-07-2025-0678, omitted information relating to the funding of the article.This funding information is “This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 72472048)”.The publisher asks that funding information be entered correctly at submission and confirmed at article proofing stage.
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From Autonomy to Alienation: Exploring Organisational Dehumanisation Among Ride-Hailing Drivers
Group & Organization Management Shipra Shaiwalini July 16, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Job Design Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance
Platform ride-hailing pairs algorithmic efficiency with promises of flexible, ‘be-your-own-boss’ work, yet drivers portray the job as dignity-stripping. Using an interpretive–abductive design, 31 interviews with Indian male drivers were conducted and analysed via the Gioia methodology. Six interlocking mechanisms emerged: indiscriminate automation, metrics-driven gamification, detached and transactional relationship, deindividuation, limited solidarity and emotional distance, and entrapment, each aligning with classic facets of organisational dehumanisation. Advancing the scholarship on organisational dehumanisation, this study conceptualises dehumanisation as a process that systematically erodes dignity and introduces a novel framework that maps the six mechanisms into three analytically distinct but interrelated dignity erosion pathways: epistemic flattening (erosion of recognitional dignity and professional identity), affective disembedding (erosion of relational dignity and emotional recognition), and c oercive infrastructure (erosion of autonomy and volition). The findings also reveal that this moral injury stems from the synergy of code, discretionary corporate policy, and capital structure, an interaction ignored by autonomy-versus-precarity and technostress debates. The study also proposes multi-level remedies: participatory rating dashboards, live dispute channels, EMI-to-income caps, and peer-mentoring hubs, that simultaneously address code, corporate process, and capital architecture. By revealing how seemingly neutral algorithms can entrench coercive and dehumanising conditions, the study invites platform designers, regulators, and labour advocates to pursue human-centred governance of digital work.
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Collective Perceptions Matter: How Team Alignment on Perceived AI Usefulness and Ease of Use Impacts Self-Efficacy and Task Proficiency
Group & Organization Management Ji Hoon Lee, Ye Dai, Jeeyoon Jeong July 16, 2026
Teams Artificial Intelligence/Technology Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance
This study investigates how alignment between team-level perceptions of AI usefulness and ease of use shapes collective outcomes. Drawing on social cognitive theory and the technology acceptance model, we theorize that perceptual congruence enhances group AI self-efficacy, which in turn promotes group task proficiency. We tested this framework using time-lagged survey data from 318 employees nested within 107 teams in South Korean police organizations, where AI adoption was mandated. Polynomial regression and response surface methodology revealed that congruence between perceived usefulness and ease of use was associated with higher group AI self-efficacy than misalignment, with effects strongest under high–high alignment. We also found asymmetric misalignment effects: self-efficacy declined more steeply when usefulness exceeded ease of use than the reverse. Mediation analyses confirmed group AI self-efficacy as the mechanism linking perceptual alignment to task proficiency. These findings highlight the importance of shared perceptions for effective AI integration in team settings.
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Book Review: Stefan Timmermans and Iddo Tavory. Data Analysis in Qualitative Research: Theorizing with Abductive Analysis TimmermansStefanTavoryIddo. Data Analysis in Qualitative Research: Theorizing with Abductive Analysis. University of Chicago Press, 2022. 200 pp.
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Administrative Science Quarterly Siobhan O’Mahony July 15, 2026
Research Methods Training & Development Measurement & Psychometrics Individual Differences Health & Well-Being
A great many texts try to explain how to design and analyze field research projects.But few explain how to do so in ways that produce the unexpected.While some scholars are concerned with replication and the ability to validate prior research, most journals prioritize discovery of novel theoretical advancements.This discovery often comes in the form of surprise: the unexpected or foiling of expectations.As Timmermans and Tavory argue, "If you are unwilling to ask questions that may give you answers you didn't expect . . .you are not doing research" (p.14).The authors offer a fresh perspective on this dimension: How should we design and conduct research if our aim is to discover surprise?If we take discovery and the element of surprise seriously, what should we do differently?Can we actually plan for surprise?I think that Timmermans and Tavory would argue that you can prepare yourself for surprise, as how to do so is the focus of this book.Data Analysis in Qualitative Research builds on arguments outlined in the authors' prior book, Abductive Analysis: Theorizing Qualitative Research (2014), and is primarily concerned with how to apply abduction throughout the research process.As the authors note in their latest book, its title is a bit misleading, as data analysis is just a small section of the book, which includes chapters on research design, collecting data, coding, writing, and theorizing-all through the lens of abduction.Having taught field methods for several years, I have observed that many students struggle to understand what abduction is and how to apply it.For the authors, abductive analysis is the process of crafting theory: "figuring out both what surprising observations are a theoretical case of, and where the theoretical case and the findings diverge in interesting ways" (p.2).For anyone teaching, conducting, or learning field methods, this book will enrich the toolkit and help to address many questions about abductive analysis.In this review, I focus on some of the book's counterintuitive approaches to producing surprise that diverge from other books on qualitative or grounded theory methods.Timmermans and Tavory offer quality ideas on ways to cultivate surprise, such as seeking variation.Many field researchers focus on demonstrating replication by showing commonalities across units of study.Timmermans and Tavory take a different approach, urging authors to appreciate and to seek variation in their data.They argue that this is essential for generating theory that counters expectations: "You are in a much better position to find surprises if you have a rich database and variation to work with" (p.55).I agree that field researchers would do well to search for variation and to analyze, rather than ignore, it and that doing so can accelerate the development of novel theory.
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The Durability of Compliance Under External Accountability: The Case of the Police Data Initiative
Organization Science Tae-Ung Choi, Minjae Kim July 15, 2026
Selection & Assessment Performance Research Methods
External accountability initiatives, which combine public disclosure of internal information with enforcement, are widely regarded as useful instruments to effect organizational compliance with external demands. Yet, even though such compliance may be fruitful only if it persists, its durability has been assumed rather than directly tested. We report on such direct tests, using the Police Data Initiative (PDI). Launched across the United States in 2015 to “decrease inappropriate uses of force,” especially against Black citizens, the PDI mandated the release of traffic stop data and increased oversight of participating local police departments. A difference‐in‐differences analysis across 36 police departments shows that PDI adoption initially reduced stops, especially in neighborhoods with more Black residents. Over time, however, these treated departments reversed course and ultimately increased stops, particularly in said neighborhoods. This backsliding was more pronounced in departments with higher pre-PDI stop rates and larger racial disparities. Our findings show limited durability of compliance under external accountability and identify conditions under which external accountability reinforces entrenched patterns over time. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2024.18975 .
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How Prompting for Maximal Performance and Preparation Time Influence Interview Performance, Validity and Response Content in Past Behavior Questions
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Human Performance Koralie Orji, Adrian Bangerter July 15, 2026
Performance Selection & Assessment Measurement & Psychometrics Organizational Change Research Methods
In selection interviews, past behavior questions (PBQs) invite interviewees to tell a story showcasing their competence. Yet many responses reflect typical rather than maximal performance, creating a selection risk when raters undervalue interviewees whose best performance exceeds their everyday level. Prior work shows that rewording PBQs to prompt maximal performance improves interview performance. We extend this work by examining how maximal-performance prompting changes the way interviewees answer, focusing on storytelling and evaluative tone, and by testing whether preparation time provides additional support. In a 2 × 2 experiment, participants completed a mock asynchronous video interview (N = 274), answering three PBQs under limited versus unlimited preparation time and with either traditional or maximal-performance wording. Interviewees reported honest and deceptive impression management (IM) and job performance (task and contextual). Raters assessed interview performance. Responses were coded for stories and pseudo-stories, and evaluative tone was analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 2022. Maximal-performance wording improved interview performance, increased story production, and elicited more positive and negative tone. Preparation time had no effect on performance or storytelling, and IM did not vary across condition. Interview performance was associated with contextual performance, but this relation was weaker with unlimited preparation time and maximal-performance wording.
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Faking Resistance of Forced‐Choice and Single‐Statement Personality Measures: Stress‐Testing With Humans and Generative AI
International Journal of Selection and Assessment Chet Robie, Justin R. Feeney, Sabah Rasheed, Joshua S. Bourdage, Neil D. Christiansen, et al. July 15, 2026
Measurement & Psychometrics Individual Differences Artificial Intelligence/Technology Selection & Assessment Research Methods
ABSTRACT A major concern with personality assessment in high‐stakes settings is test‐takers misrepresenting (“faking”) their personalities. Although test developers have adopted difficult‐to‐fake forced‐choice (FC) formats, generative artificial intelligence (AI) now offers test‐takers a highly sophisticated “test‐coach,” and yet it is unclear how resilient FC formats are to faking by AI‐generated response sets. This investigation examined the faking resistance of single‐statement (SS), forced‐choice IRT (FC‐IRT), and forced‐choice CTT (FC‐CTT) versions of the HEXACO inventory. 219 Accounting/Finance professionals completed the three assessments under honest and applicant conditions, the latter for a role where Honesty‐Humility and Conscientiousness were target traits. Three frontier AI models were repeatedly prompted with analogous instructions to simulate AI‐assisted faking. We found that two AI models consistently outscored human test‐takers under applicant conditions across all formats. Among the human‐generated responses, the FC‐CTT format showed less inflation than FC‐IRT for Honesty‐Humility and better rank‐order stability in applicant conditions, but this pattern did not extend to Conscientiousness. Neither FC format demonstrated clear improvements in convergent or criterion‐related validity. Findings challenge the previous assumption that FC measurement approaches can fully mitigate human‐ or AI‐assisted faking.
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Gendered Pathways to Work–Family Balance and Their Consequences: Insights From Dual‐Career Faculty Couples
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Human Resource Development Quarterly Kyung Nam Kim, Shinhee Jeong July 15, 2026
Health & Well-Being Diversity & Inclusion Training & Development Selection & Assessment Motivation
ABSTRACT This study examines gendered work–family balance (WFB) experiences among dual‐career academic couples at U.S. research‐intensive universities. By comparing faculty couples who shared the same or similar professional and family contexts, the study explores how gendered demands, challenges, resources, and strategies shaped distinct WFB outcomes. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with dual‐career faculty couples and using thematic analysis, we found that both women and men experienced substantial work–family demands and emotional labor, but these pressures were experienced and managed differently. Women described greater burdens related to caregiving responsibilities, biological demands, limited institutional support, and gendered social expectations, which often contributed to tenure delays, emotional exhaustion, and reduced career goals. Men also reported stress and family‐related career adjustments, but they appeared to have greater access to institutional resources, family support, and socially accepted strategies for preserving professional identity and career progression. This study proposes a couple‐level input–process–output (IPO) model to synthesize how gendered inputs, processes, and outcomes unfold among dual‐career faculty couples. The findings underscore the need for universities to develop gender‐sensitive policies and support systems that recognize unequal caregiving expectations, emotional labor, and career consequences among faculty members.
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Staying silent for your workplace friends? The association between workplace friendship and silence motives and the mediating role of social expectations
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Sophia Humps, Nina M. Junker July 14, 2026
Motivation Research Methods Networks Training & Development Turnover & Retention
Abstract Workplace friendships foster open communication, yet can create dilemmas for employees who consider speaking up or remaining silent regarding workplace issues. Adopting a boundary theory lens, this article examines how friendship in work teams and toward specific team members relates to lateral silence motives (i.e., reasons for remaining silent toward someone at the same hierarchical level). This approach acknowledges the multiplexity of workplace friendships, integrating the roles of employee and friend. We propose that blurring these roles relates to silence motives by affecting the social expectations individuals have toward themselves in relation to their team members. We tested our hypotheses in two studies among UK employees working in small teams. Specifically, we examined the relationship between workplace friendship and lateral silence in a two‐wave time‐lagged study (Study 1, N = 448), and partially replicated these results and tested social expectations as a mediator in a three‐wave time‐lagged study toward individual team members (Study 2, N = 208). Workplace friendship was negatively associated with acquiescent and opportunistic silence in both studies, but was positively associated with prosocial silence and negatively with quiescent silence in Study 2. Friendship‐related social expectations mediated these associations in Study 2 (except for quiescent silence), indicating that workplace friendships may be a double‐edged sword.
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When Performance Goal Orientations Foster Bootlegging: The Competing Roles of Transformational and Transactional Leadership
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Group & Organization Management Jinzhao Qu, Svetlana N. Khapova, Jian Shi July 14, 2026
Motivation Performance Leadership Training & Development Organizational Change
Research on bootlegging has recently gained much attention due to its benefits for innovation through informal and covert efforts among employees. Scholars have thus increasingly spotlighted how and when employees engage in bootlegging, particularly investigating those with different goal orientations. Existing studies reveal mixed findings, suggesting that both performance-prove goal orientation (PPGO) and performance-avoidant goal orientation (PAGO) can foster employee bootlegging. These inconsistencies require a thorough understanding of the significant influencing factors of bootlegging, especially the role of leadership in motivating such behavior. Drawing on goal orientation theory and the literature on transformational and transactional leadership, we posited that PPGO promotes employees’ increased bootlegging, especially under transactional leadership. Similarly, PAGO inspires more bootlegging among employees, especially under transformational leadership. We test our hypotheses through a multi-wave, multi-source field study ( N = 374) and two scenario-based experiments ( N = 411). Results in the field study show that both PPGO and PAGO trigger bootlegging. Results in the experiments indicate that PPGO employees engage in more bootlegging under transactional leadership, while PAGO employees engage in more bootlegging under transformational leadership. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, promoting a nuanced understanding of the crucial drivers and conditions of bootlegging.
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Mindfulness at Work: How Strong Is the Scientific Evidence?
Journal of Organizational Behavior Gwendolin B. Sajons, John Antonakis July 13, 2026
Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance Health & Well-Being Organizational Change
ABSTRACT Are there benefits of mindfulness in the workplace? The answer is unclear. In this Point article, we argue that practice may be running ahead of robust scientific evidence. We highlight six systematic design and estimation challenges studies in the fields of management and applied psychology face: (1) Current survey studies are ill suited to inform policy because they do not employ designs that allow identifying causal effects. (2) The procedures used to explore how mindfulness may affect outcomes (i.e., mediating mechanisms) are inadequate for theory testing. (3) The majority of studies rely on self‐report data instead of testing the effect of mindfulness on objective outcomes. (4) Intervention studies, typically considered the gold standard for causal evidence, often rely on self‐selected employee samples, and (5) these studies also frequently use weak counterfactuals. (6) Finally, mindfulness reviews tend to be based on primary studies with clear methodological limitations, and methodological critiques are largely not reflected in research practice. We provide concrete recommendations for each of these issues and, where possible, highlight positive examples from the literature. We hope that these recommendations will inform future research and ultimately help organizations make better‐grounded choices among competing interventions to foster employee health and well‐being.
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Psychological contract breach and employee health: a critical review, exploratory meta-analysis and future research agenda
Work & Stress Sandra Costa, Jacqueline Coyle-Shapiro, Pedro Neves July 13, 2026
Health & Well-Being Research Methods Job Attitudes Networks Performance
Substantial empirical support exists for the deleterious consequences of psychological contract breach on organisationally centric outcomes. However, less attention has been given to the consequences of contract breach on employee-centric outcomes such as health. Given the increasing attention being placed on health in both the academic and practitioner domains, this is an opportune moment to take stock of how and why the experience of breach affects employee health. We begin by conducting a review of the theories used to explain the psychological contract breach-health relationship. We then conduct an exploratory meta-analysis to quantitatively understand the direction and intensity of the relationship between psychological contract breach and health-related outcomes (physical health, mental health, burnout, perceived stress and strain, and absenteeism). The meta-analysis includes 42 studies and 23,910 participants. Our findings provide evidence that scholars are moving away from the norm of reciprocity and social exchange theory to explain the effects of psychological contract breach on health outcomes and that these relationships vary from weak to moderate. In closing, we make several suggestions for future research.
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The Disappearance of Gender Discrimination in Male-dominated Professions: The Career Accounts of Compartmentalizers, Lucky Men and Tough Women
Organization Science Erin Marie Reid, Lakshmi Ramarajan July 13, 2026
Diversity & Inclusion Training & Development Networks Selection & Assessment Individual Differences
Discrimination against women remains common in male-dominated professions, yet people tend not to acknowledge its impacts for career inequality. Analyzing interviews with 125 journalists, we develop novel theory on how people disappear discrimination in their accounts of their own career progress. Most participants (102/125) regarded gender discrimination to be problematic in the profession. Yet, people were inconsistent in how they explained discrimination’s personal career impacts. Discrimination and advantage slipped in and out of people’s career accounts: some women and men disappeared discrimination by compartmentalizing it from their careers and relying solely on merit to explain their own progress, some men substituted luck for gender advantage as an explanation for progress that could not be explained by merit, and some women centered discrimination-countering practices in their accounts, which simultaneously subverted and disappeared discrimination. Discrimination’s inconsistent presence contrasted with the consistent presence of merit across career accounts. We theorize these contradictions as evidence of an individual-level process of disappearance of gender discrimination, and specify how contextual embeddedness (i.e., close personal relationships and employment structure) shapes people’s accounts. This individual level theory of disappearance of gender discrimination advances scholarship on the disappearance of gender inequality, and also contributes to the growing literature on the intersection of merit and discrimination.
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The dynamics of well-being at work: longitudinal profiles of boredom, burnout, and work engagement
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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Cecilia Toscanelli, Michaël Parmentier, Ieva Urbanavičiūtė, Andreas Hirschi July 13, 2026
Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being Research Methods Training & Development Leadership
Job boredom, a deactivated and unpleasant affective state experienced at work, can become persistent, leading to negative consequences for individuals and organizations. However, the possible co-existence of job boredom with other workplace well-being indicators, such as burnout and work engagement, is still poorly understood. To address this issue, our research expands upon the predominant variable-centred perspective on boredom and employs a longitudinal person-centred approach to investigate the most salient configurations of job boredom, burnout, and work engagement over time and examine job demands and resources as predictors of profile membership. Across two samples, findings revealed distinct well-being profiles, including high-burnout/low-engagement profiles, alongside bored-and-burned-out and mixed profiles. Role conflict was found to predict unfavourable profiles, while autonomy, learning opportunities, and cognitive demands were linked to more favourable combinations. This study advances understanding of job boredom and its associations with other key aspects of workplace well-being, such as burnout and engagement. The paper offers novel insights into how these aspects can be experienced simultaneously and informs strategies to foster employee well-being by promoting favourable configurations.
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Gender Differences in Performance and Development Potential and Resulting Impacts on Promotions
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International Journal of Selection and Assessment Tobias L. Kordsmeyer, Sarah K. Godehardt, Julia Roß, Sophie L. A. Lanzoni, Andrew B. Speer July 13, 2026
Performance Training & Development Diversity & Inclusion Research Methods Organizational Culture
ABSTRACT Performance appraisals (PAs) are widely used to assess employees' performance and development potential, influencing decisions about work allocation, compensation, promotion, and employee termination. Because PAs are so influential, any differences in evaluations between demographic groups—such as between men and women—are incredibly important, given their potential to affect downstream employee outcomes. However, empirical evidence on the direction, magnitude, and moderating factors of gender differences in PAs has been inconsistent. Using a large data set ( N = 20,199 employees) from a multinational wholesale company, we replicated and extended findings on gender differences in PA ratings, examining potential moderating variables and downstream effects on promotions as a key future outcome. Our findings revealed statistically significant but small to negligible gender differences in evaluations of performance and development potential, with male employees receiving slightly higher ratings than female employees. These differences were moderated by departmental gender composition and partially by manager gender. Despite these differences, PA ratings of performance and development potential were similarly related to promotions for both male and female employees. Overall, our findings suggest that gender biases, albeit small, persist, adding to a growing literature on how organizational cultures shape evaluative behavior.
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“We” Are High Performers: Vicarious Self‐Promotion Underlies Managers' Leniency in Online Reference Checks
International Journal of Selection and Assessment Ryan P. Jacobson, Ryan Jacobson, Carl‐Johan Holmberg July 13, 2026
Performance Selection & Assessment Diversity & Inclusion HR Systems & Talent Management Artificial Intelligence/Technology
ABSTRACT Structured online reference checks (SORCs) are predictive of job performance and cost effective given that they can be completed quickly and require no “live” interview by HR personnel. Additionally, they appear to reduce gender bias—a problem identified with other reference checking methods. However, additional research is needed to examine possible threats to this method's effectiveness. One such threat is leniency bias, which has been leveled as a general criticism of reference checking by both scholars and practitioners. The present research, involving eight experimental studies, represents the first systematic investigation of leniency bias in SORCs. The results, involving data from over 1700 full‐time managers in the U.K. and U.S., indicate that: (a) quantitative ratings of direct reports' performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior are more lenient in a SORC condition than when reporting private assessments; (b) vicarious self‐promotion (i.e., managers' presenting themselves positively through lenient ratings of their employees) helps to account for this bias; and (c) leniency is reduced by providing instructions that encourage the referee to take the perspective of the hiring manager rather than the job candidate when completing the reference check. While this research suggests that SORCs are likely to suffer from leniency bias, it also identifies a promising and relatively simple method to mitigate leniency. Implications for future research and practice are explored.
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From Tasks to Traits: Can LLMs Infer Personality From Brief Assessment Center Behavior?
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International Journal of Selection and Assessment Tobias Marc Härtel July 13, 2026
Individual Differences Selection & Assessment Measurement & Psychometrics Training & Development Teams
ABSTRACT Assessment centers (ACs) could provide behavioral foundations for trait assessment but demand substantial resources, especially the labor‐intensive human rating process. As organizations adopt large language models (LLMs) for automated assessment, we establish initial psychometric benchmarks for LLM‐based trait inference from AC behavior. We processed recordings from 363 participants in brief simulated online AC group discussions through an automated pipeline: Whisper (speech recognition), Pyannote (speaker diarization), and Gemini 2.0 Flash (trait inference across the Big Five, narcissism, and intelligence). As a human benchmark, eight trained raters (four aggregated per transcript) independently inferred the same traits from a subsample of 100 group discussion transcripts. Aggregating multiple LLM runs yielded high reliability across traits (ICC(3,4) = 0.75–0.92). LLM convergent validity with trait tests was modest but above chance for all traits except conscientiousness, and varied by trait observability: openness and intelligence ( r = 0.20), narcissism, extraversion, and agreeableness ( r = 0.12–0.16), emotional stability and conscientiousness ( r = 0.07–0.11). These findings lend support to AC behavior as a basis for measuring personality even under minimal information, with these validities likely a lower bound on what richer inputs would yield. Most notably, an LLM could infer personality from this behavior, with convergent validities descriptively higher than the human benchmark for most traits. Overall, constrained by discriminant validity, gender‐related adverse impact, and input dependencies (amount and clarity), the LLM trait inferences remained insufficient for standalone selection but can be produced at negligible marginal cost, positioning LLMs as a potential low‐cost contributor to multi‐source assessment pipelines.
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Contextualizing Mindfulness at Work: Strengthening the Scientific Evidence
Journal of Organizational Behavior Darren Good, Christopher Lyddy, Kirk Warren Brown July 12, 2026
Performance Social Responsibility Research Methods Training & Development Networks
ABSTRACT Are there benefits to mindfulness in the workplace? The answer is clear. In this Counterpoint to Sajons and Antonakis (in press), we consider the research evidence showing that mindfulness contributes to enhanced workplace well‐being, healthy social dynamics, and job performance. This interdisciplinary mindfulness literature is notable for its rigor and breadth, which bolsters confidence in the workplace value of mindfulness. We propose advancing discourse on the topic by contextualizing mindfulness within organizational scholarship. This important inquiry involves integrating mindfulness with models of organizational cognition and clarifying its workplace antecedents, moderators, and boundary conditions. These additions should narrow the gap between sanguine and skeptical perspectives on mindfulness at work. Taken together, we argue that mindfulness is beneficial, benign, and worthy of sustained scholarly and organizational investment.
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Bodily Data Control, Human Agency Threats, and Job Insecurity
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Journal of Management Jayson Killoran, Andrew Park, Jasmin Manseau, Jan Kietzmann July 12, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Social Responsibility Performance Individual Differences Teams
Across contemporary workplaces, organizations are increasingly deploying biometric technologies that capture, analyze, and act upon workers’ physiological and behavioral data, including heart rate variability, movement patterns, and keystroke dynamics. These technologies do not merely monitor workers; they introduce a qualitatively distinct form of managerial authority that is shaping perceptions of employees’ future organizational standing. We term this phenomenon bodily data control, defined as the organizational expectation that workers’ bodily data constitutes a legitimate input into evaluation, coordination, and intervention. We contend that bodily data control threatens a worker’s ability to think, plan, and act, which elicits job insecurity. Job insecurity refers to the perceived threat to the stability and continuity of one’s employment. We propose a theoretical model in which bodily data control threatens three dimensions of human agency: interpretive agency, moral agency, and instrumental agency. We theorize that these agency threats manifest experientially as perceived creepiness, affronts to inherent and meritocratic dignity, and reduced job autonomy, respectively, each of which elicits job insecurity through a distinct causal pathway. Our theoretical model and propositions contribute to job insecurity scholarship by reframing technology-induced job insecurity as a function of managerial authority over bodily data, rather than task displacement alone. We also contribute to broader management conversations regarding human agency, algorithmic governance, and the ethical treatment of workers in an era of pervasive surveillance.
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The burden of being good: Exploring the sources and implications of citizenship pressure
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Junyoung Hong, Steve M. Jex July 11, 2026
Individual Differences Research Methods Performance Leadership Selection & Assessment
Abstract This research investigates citizenship pressure, defined as the perception of pressure to perform organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), by examining its sources, outcomes and mechanisms. Study 1 surveyed employees to test how supervisor and coworker OCB demands, along with personality traits (conscientiousness and agreeableness), predict citizenship pressure at the between‐person level. Although personality traits showed no direct effects, they moderated how individuals responded to interpersonal demands. As for outcomes, citizenship pressure was positively related to both OCB and withdrawal, underscoring its dual implications. Study 2 extended the model at the within‐person level using a five‐day daily diary design, revealing a cross‐level interaction in which agreeableness amplified the daily effect of supervisory demands. Across both studies, citizenship pressure mediated the link between OCB demands and behavioural outcomes. Overall, this research highlights citizenship pressure as a dynamic construct shaped by contextual demands and personal dispositions that leads to positive organizational contributions yet also increases strain‐based outcomes. These findings underscore the need for organizations to manage informal expectations carefully, ensuring that extra‐role encouragement does not inadvertently trigger disengagement or strain.
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Transformational leadership and chronic pain at work: Psychological pathways to reduced pain interference
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Duygu Biricik Gulseren, Firat K. Sayin, Nick Turner, E. Kevin Kelloway July 11, 2026
Leadership Organizational Change Research Methods Performance Networks
Abstract Drawing on the Thriving through Relationships model, we examine transformational leadership as a relational job resource that may help employees with chronic pain manage pain‐related work interference by fostering positive psychological well‐being. We conceptualize chronic pain as a persistent adversity and examine pain intensity as a boundary condition that may constrain the benefits of leadership‐supported psychological resources. Using three‐wave longitudinal data from 195 employees with chronic pain, we found that transformational leadership was indirectly associated with lower subsequent pain interference through positive psychological well‐being. This indirect effect was significant at low and moderate levels of pain intensity, but non‐significant at high levels. These findings suggest that transformational leadership may support employees' capacity to manage pain interference by fostering positive psychological well‐being, but that this pathway is attenuated when pain intensity is high. More broadly, the study identifies adversity load as a condition that may shape when relational job resources translate into improved functioning.
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Unveiling the hidden hazards: Exploring the unintended consequences of legal changes on employee injuries.
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Journal of Applied Psychology Ke Michael, Yupeng Lin, Keyuan Zhang, Rengong Zhang July 09, 2026
Health & Well-Being Organizational Change Performance Research Methods Teams
This study investigates the unintended effects of legal changes in shareholder litigation on employee injuries, revealing substantial consequences for employee welfare when restrictions are placed on shareholder litigation. Using a quasi-natural experiment involving the adoption of universal demand laws, we found that this reform, aimed at improving operational efficiency, is associated with a 28% increase in workplace injuries. This increase coincided with a marked surge in managerial focus on firm growth, without a commensurate increase in attention to safety. The association is stronger in lower income counties, highlighting a potential economic redistribution effect that concerns vulnerable employee groups. We also find that female-led firms exhibit minimal increases in injury rates after the adoption, in contrast to male-led firms, indicating that CEO gender moderates the relationship. These findings highlight how regulatory changes may be associated with unintended consequences for employees through shifts in managerial focus. We discuss the theoretical and policy implications of our findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Community weaving to address societal grand challenges: The case of mental health destigmatization.
Journal of Applied Psychology Glen E. Kreiner, Dane Cannon, Daniel Rapp, Trent Williams, Jennifer Wiseman July 09, 2026
Health & Well-Being Teams Social Responsibility Job Attitudes Performance
-an organizing approach that enables sustained engagement among heterogeneous actors under conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and evaluative heterogeneity. Community weaving combines a central coordinating architecture with semiautonomous substructures that support partial alignment around a multivocal shared purpose while enabling distributed, locally meaningful action. Rather than resolving tensions in stakeholder goals, values, and priorities, the initiative sustains participation by recursively reworking persistent tensions as it grows. Our model and theorizing advance research on organizing for social impact by showing how collaboration can be maintained without full convergence or centralized control. In doing so, we shift attention from consensus and governance toward partial alignment, multivocality, and recursive coordination as mechanisms for sustaining collective action in complex social systems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Inter‐Rater Reliability of AI Scores: A Call to Move from Correlational to Factor Analytical Estimation
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Personnel Psychology Andrew B. Speer July 09, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Measurement & Psychometrics Research Methods Individual Differences Diversity & Inclusion
ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence (AI), such as large language models (LLMs), is increasingly being used to score psychological and organizational constructs from text. However, the reliability and validity of these scores remains vital. Frequently, AI scores are treated as replicants of human ratings and inter‐rater reliability (IRR) is established by correlating AI and subject‐matter‐expert (SME) ratings. Yet, because LLMs may meaningfully differ from humans in ability to score text, correlating LLM scores with SME ratings is inappropriate because correlational approaches assume that AI and human scores are parallel, a condition that is unlikely and difficult to verify. This study proposes a factor‐analytic alternative in which AI scores and SME ratings are modeled as congeneric indicators of a common latent construct, estimating AI IRR as the squared standardized AI loading. Using a Monte Carlo simulation, correlational and CFA‐based IRR estimates were compared while manipulating true LLM and SME reliability, sample size, number of SME raters, and rater mean differences under ill‐structured rater designs. The simulations confirmed that when parallelism is violated, correlation‐based estimates (whether using single‐rater or composite SME ratings) are severely biased. In contrast, the proposed CFA framework accurately estimates AI IRR across diverse conditions, with precision improving as sample size, true IRR, and the number of SME raters increases. Furthermore, although ill‐structured designs reduce estimation accuracy, within‐rater standardization eliminated these inaccuracies. In conclusion, this paper urges researchers and practitioners to stop using correlational designs when estimating the IRR of LLM scores and offers best practice guidance going forward.
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Threatened competence but strengthened relatedness: The relationship between receiving help and proactive behaviour
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Yuan-Fang Zhan, Ying Xia, Li-Rong Long July 09, 2026
Networks Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance Diversity & Inclusion
Abstract Research indicates that receiving help can undermine recipients' competence‐based self‐esteem but overlooks its potential to boost relational self‐esteem and belonging. We propose a dual‐pathway model in which receiving help lowers state competence‐based self‐esteem but increases sense of belonging, with preliminary downstream effects on promotion‐oriented task and relationship crafting; these effects depend on competence‐contingent self‐esteem (CCSE). We tested this model in two complementary studies. Study 1 used an experiment with U.S. employees and showed that help recall reduced state competence‐based self‐esteem and increased belonging; the indirect effect on relationship crafting via belonging was significant, whereas the indirect effect on task crafting via state competence‐based self‐esteem was not. Study 2 used a 2‐week, bi‐daily experience‐sampling design and tested moderated mediation in daily work life. Receiving help predicted higher belonging, and CCSE moderated both competence and relational appraisal pathways as hypothesized.
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Are “Different” Employee–Organizational Bonds All That Different? A Review and Comparative Meta‐Analysis Reconciling Employee–Organizational Bonds Constructs
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Edileide Oliveira, Valerie I. Sessa, Wesley Johnson, Catrina Notari, Frederick Vinal, et al. July 09, 2026
Job Attitudes Networks Training & Development Measurement & Psychometrics Performance
ABSTRACT The fundamental human need to bond, connect, or attach to others is as crucial to humankind as the need for food and water, and this inherent drive extends into the workplace as well. Employee–organizational bonds have long been recognized as central to understanding employees' relationships with their organizations. However, questions remain regarding whether several widely studied bond constructs represent empirically distinct phenomena or overlapping conceptual space. The present research examined the distinctiveness of four major employee–organizational bond constructs: organizational commitment, organizational identification, job embeddedness, and perceived organizational support. We reviewed existing meta‐analyses and conducted a large‐scale comparative meta‐analysis spanning more than 1400 studies to evaluate intercorrelations among constructs and their relationships with shared antecedents and outcomes. Results revealed consistently strong correlations and highly similar nomological patterns among affective commitment, organizational identification, job embeddedness, and perceived organizational support, suggesting substantial empirical redundancy. In contrast, continuance and normative commitment demonstrated more divergent patterns. These findings raise concerns regarding construct proliferation within the employee–organizational bond literature and support calls for greater theoretical and measurement parsimony. Implications for construct refinement, scale development, and future research on organizational bonds are discussed.
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“Work Optional”: The Adoption and Enactment of a New Work Ideal in the Financial Independence Retire Early Community
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Administrative Science Quarterly Laura Sonday July 09, 2026
Organizational Change Selection & Assessment Teams Networks Organizational Culture
This study examines how people change their relationship with work through the adoption and enactment of a new work ideal: a novel aspiration for what constitutes an optimal work life. Drawing on two years of ethnographic observation of the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) community, two rounds of interviews with 55 informants, and analysis of archival materials, I identify four community tactics that informants used to promote a new “work optional” ideal rooted in financial freedom. I then show how the transformational capacity of this ideal hinged on individual perceptions of its appeal and attainability, which evolved via an interplay of group influence and individual sensemaking. Enactment of the new work ideal ranged from radical recalibration to marginal modification of working life. This study explains not only how people are persuaded to adopt a new ideal for work but also why that ideal varies in its transformative impact. I discuss the implications for research on the ideal worker norm, the meaning of work, and ideological conversion.
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Entrepreneurial Subjective Ambivalence and Venture Idea Revision
Journal of Management Andreea N. Kiss, Naomi B. Rothman, Willy Das, Insung Hwang July 08, 2026
Job Attitudes Performance Training & Development Health & Well-Being Research Methods
We investigate the effects of entrepreneurial subjective ambivalence on a form of adaptive action: venture idea revision. Building on the affect-as-information perspective, we propose that entrepreneurial subjective ambivalence will increase venture idea revision by increasing information search behaviors. The results of a longitudinal, repeated-measures field study based on 175 entrepreneurs in a top incubator program demonstrate that when entrepreneurs experience higher subjective ambivalence (compared to lower ambivalence) in response to mentor feedback about their new ventures, they engage in higher levels of venture idea revision. We theorize and find that this increase in venture idea revision arises because subjective ambivalence is positively associated with more intense and broader information search behaviors. We discuss implications of our findings for research on affect in entrepreneurial decision-making, creative revision, and ambivalence in organizations, as well as for formal entrepreneurial mentoring programs.
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An essay about work psychology and the psychology of working
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Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice Howard Weiss, Seth A. Kaplan, Deborah Rupp July 08, 2026
Health & Well-Being Diversity & Inclusion Training & Development Networks Organizational Change
Abstract Despite the ubiquity of work and its importance for both individual well-being and societal functioning, the psychology of work remains a relatively small field within psychology that has not fulfilled its potential for individual, organizational, or societal impact. This is a result of industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology (and related fields) almost exclusively relying on a third-person, work-centric perspective. This perspective has its roots in I-O psychology’s initial aims of maximizing human efficiency/productivity and organizational profitability—labeled herein as the “Munsterberg Project.” Although there are now important tributaries flowing from the Munsterberg project that go well beyond financial concerns (e.g., research on occupational health and safety, employee well-being, diversity, work–family issues, among many others), they largely remain embedded in this traditional paradigm. This essay calls for a supplementation of this perspective with a person-centric, first-person study of the experience (i.e., phenomenology) of working. Such a perspective prioritizes humans as creators. Leveraging historical and philosophical arguments, the deficiencies of the traditional paradigm are highlighted, and a first-person perspective is called for that can yield novel insights that will ultimately help the psychology of work take its rightful place among other fundamental psychologies inherent to social and organizational science. Forward Howard Weiss spent his career thinking and writing about the psychological experience of work. His formulations of affective events theory and person-centric work psychology represent sea changes within the field, and since those writings, he continued to deeply contemplate the directions psychology needs to take to better understand the contribution of “work and working” to the human experience. He saw the current paper as his final opus—a culmination of his conclusions about “what is missing” within the field of psychology and a set of ideas with which new bright scholars could push the field forward. Upon being diagnosed with cancer in late 2022 and realizing he may not live long enough to complete this paper, he asked the second author to ensure its completion and publication. He died in February 2023. The second author invited the third author, who had worked closely with Howard on earlier work on person-centric work psychology, to join him in shaping years’ worth of Howard’s notes, missives, and working drafts into a paper that could aid scholars in bringing his theoretical ideas to reality. The second and third authors have attempted to do justice to Howard’s ideas and vision, adding and editing using their best judgment. Essential to emphasize, though, is that these ideas are primarily Howard’s, and any positive reactions or reflections about the paper owe to him reading about, reflecting upon, and writing down these themes over many years. Similarly, any errors or confusion about these ideas should be attributed to us.
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Coping with inauthenticity: A social interaction perspective linking daily surface acting with deliberate drinking after work
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Nai‐Wen Chi, Gordon M. Sayre, Yin Yee Wong, Ke‐Li Li July 07, 2026
Training & Development Research Methods Motivation Networks Selection & Assessment
Abstract Alcohol use is costly for individual health and organizational competitiveness and is prevalent in jobs where employees regulate their emotions. While this suggests a link between emotional labour and alcohol consumption, prior work adopting a self‐control lens has found mixed results. We clarify this relationship by considering drinking not only as a failure of self‐control but also as a motivational strategy to cope with unpleasant feelings. Specifically, we integrate the social interaction model and the motivational model of alcohol use to propose that daily surface acting predicts greater felt inauthenticity by employees. Employees who feel inauthentic will be motivated to drink more as a means of coping with this negative internal state. This should be especially true when they hold positive beliefs about the tension–reduction capabilities of alcohol. We test our model across two experience sampling studies of customer service workers, examining our proposed mediators while also controlling for depletion as an alternative mechanism. Results confirm our hypotheses and highlight the importance of considering the underlying motivations for why people drink. These findings also advance the emotional labour literature by pointing to inauthenticity as an important but often ignored social mechanism connecting surface acting with a critical health behaviour.
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Lonely and unfair, performance impaired: How perceived requester injustice and loneliness shape crowd workers' affect and work effectiveness
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Vera M. Schweitzer, Wladislaw Rivkin, Fabiola H. Gerpott July 07, 2026
Performance Training & Development Networks Research Methods Selection & Assessment
Abstract Emerging research highlights a power imbalance in the gig work ecosystem. This study unpacks this imbalance by examining how crowd workers' perceived requester injustice as a relational stressor affects performance. Drawing on Affective Events Theory, we propose that requester injustice is positively associated with negative affect and negatively associated with positive affect, which shape subjective performance. We further shed light on the interplay of relational stressors in shaping crowd workers' emotional reactions by examining state and trait loneliness as moderators of the injustice‐affect relationships. We test the proposed conceptual model across two studies: N = 84 crowd workers surveyed across 515 workdays (Study 1) and N = 141 crowd workers surveyed across one study day (Study 2). Our results indicate a positive relationship between perceived requester injustice and negative affect, moderated by state and trait loneliness. Moreover, perceived requester injustice is also negatively associated with positive affect, but this relationship is not moderated by loneliness. Additionally, negative but not positive affect is negatively related to crowd workers' subjective performance. Taken together, our findings highlight the need for gig platforms to develop policies that reduce requester injustice and foster more human‐centred work environments to reduce negative affect and associated performance.
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After‐work unhealthy eating, work‐induced ego depletion and abusive supervision: The moderating role of narcissistic admiration and rivalry
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Xiaoyu Gan, Anna Topakas, Kristin Hildenbrand, Kara Ng, Malcolm Patterson July 07, 2026
Research Methods Leadership Individual Differences Networks Performance
Abstract Abusive supervision, a harmful pattern of leadership behaviour, has consistently been found to have negative effects in the workplace. Drawing on self‐regulation and the work‐home resources model, we investigate the daily antecedents of abusive supervision from the work (ego depletion) and nonwork (unhealthy eating) domains. We examine leaders' narcissistic personality as an important boundary condition of the relationship between after‐work unhealthy eating and next‐day abusive supervision. Using Dynamic Structural Equation Modelling, we analysed daily diary data from 112 leaders and 225 followers across five organizations in China over 10 working days. We find that the work‐induced ego depletion of leaders predicts their after‐work unhealthy eating behaviours. The relationship between after‐work unhealthy eating and next‐day abusive supervision is contingent on leader narcissism: it is negative only at high levels of leader narcissistic admiration and positive at all levels of leader narcissistic rivalry, with the effect being stronger at higher levels of rivalry. Leader narcissism also moderates the indirect link between ego depletion and next‐day abusive supervision through after‐work unhealthy eating (moderated mediation). Our findings demonstrate the work–nonwork–work resource depletion spiral, provide insights into the interplay between daily factors and individual traits, and reveal some nuanced precursors of abusive supervision.
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When Does Appointing a Female Director Influence CEO Pay Raises? Investigating the Conditions that Unleash Her Minority Influence in the Boardroom
Academy of Management Journal Su Chen, Jie Feng, MarĂ­a Del Carmen Triana July 07, 2026
Diversity & Inclusion HR Systems & Talent Management Measurement & Psychometrics Networks Organizational Culture
Given women’s distinct values, perspectives, and decision-making approaches, the inclusion of female directors has been proposed as a potential mechanism for curbing excessive CEO pay raises. Yet, empirical evidence remains mixed, indicating that the mere presence of a female director does not reliably translate into meaningful influence. Drawing on minority influence theory as our core framework, supplemented by decades of gender research, we examine the incremental influence of appointing a female director on CEO pay raises to identify conditions under which her minority influence is strengthened or weakened. Using 5,395 firm-year observations from 791 Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 1500 firms between 2010 and 2017, we find that appointing a new female director is associated with smaller CEO pay raises when boards have higher levels of incumbent female representation (vs. token representation), a female CEO, fewer male-held interlocking directorships, and more frequent membership changes among male directors. We replicate our analyses using an alternative dataset, alternative measures, and more nuanced decompositions of CEO pay raises (e.g., warranted vs. unwarranted raises) and find consistent results. This research augments the dialogue on gender diversity in board governance and provides evidence on when incremental changes in board composition can help address persistent concerns about excessive CEO compensation.
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From Culprit to Cure: How Incumbents Use Prognostic Framing to Turn Societal Problem Sources into Solutions
Academy of Management Journal Hannah Schupfer, Birthe Soppe July 07, 2026
Research Methods Networks Organizational Culture Organizational Change Social Responsibility
Despite consensus on the urgency of addressing grand challenges, agreement on appropriate solutions remains elusive. Industry incumbents are increasingly influential in shaping solutions to these problems, yet their contentious involvement complicates their prognostic framing of such solutions. As moral legitimacy demands intensify, incumbents are pressured to advance transformative solutions while simultaneously meeting pragmatic legitimacy demands tied to the profitability of conventional businesses. How incumbents deploy prognostic framing under moral–pragmatic legitimacy tensions remains underexplored. We address this question through an inductive, longitudinal case study of a Norwegian oil major’s articulation of climate solutions. Our analysis reveals four prognostic framing mechanisms: bundling core business with cleaner alternatives, moralizing core business, assimilating incremental alternatives with core business, and contrasting radical alternatives with core business. Through these mechanisms, incumbents recast their contested core business as solution to a societal problem, thereby navigating moral–pragmatic legitimacy tensions while constraining the perceived problem–solution fit of radical alternatives. Deriving a grounded model of problem-source-to-solution reversal, our study advances research on framing and grand challenges by illustrating how prognostic framing can be deployed to shape problem–solution correspondence and constrain more transformative solutions to societal problems.
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Navigating the Talent Development Paradox: How Training Breadth and Depth Shape Lateral Mobility Outcomes within Organizations
Academy of Management Journal Shuye Lu, Hu Zhou, Qiuping Peng, Ning Li July 07, 2026
Training & Development Research Methods Performance Turnover & Retention Selection & Assessment
Faced with evolving skill demands and retention pressures, organizations are increasingly relying on lateral mobility to redeploy internal talent and maintain agility. Yet, they confront a persistent talent development paradox: how to cultivate deep specialization that supports current-role performance while fostering adaptability for cross-role transitions in dynamic internal talent markets. Drawing on human capital theory and matching perspectives, this study examines how the structure of training investments, characterized by breadth and depth, differentially shapes mobility outcomes across varying internal market conditions. Using seven years of personnel data from a large internet company’s lateral mobility program, we find that a broader training portfolio prior to transfer application is associated with a higher likelihood of transfer, while a deeper, more specialized portfolio predicts a lower likelihood of transfer. Breadth also predicts higher turnover following repeated rejections, but greater retention when rejection rates are low. Notably, post-transfer performance is moderated by job distance: breadth is positively associated with performance in high-distance moves, while depth is negatively associated with performance only when job distance is high. These findings shed light on how organizations navigate the specialization–adaptability trade-off through calibrations of training breadth and depth, offering new insights for talent management and employee career development.
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Social Intermediation amid Extreme Marginalization: The Morpho-Regeneration of Fractured Reflexivity
Academy of Management Journal Andrea Sottini, Alessandro Giudici, Benedetto Lorenzo Cannatelli July 07, 2026
Training & Development Job Attitudes Turnover & Retention Networks Diversity & Inclusion
The literature on social intermediaries (SIs) highlights their role in alleviating poverty and promoting market inclusion in emerging economies through interventions that counterbalance pressures from formal and informal institutions. However, this research centers on interplays between intermediaries and institutions, implicitly assuming that beneficiaries (BENs) reject their condition of poverty and retain a minimally functioning capacity for reflexive agency, supporting engagement with such interventions. In contrast, our study of slums and rural communities in Kenya and Sierra Leone examines social intermediation amid conditions in which extreme marginalization has fractured BENs’ reflexive capacity, leaving them unable to orient toward purposive action. Using a critical realist relational lens, we develop a process model in which social intermediation unfolds through interdependent morpho-regenerative processes—institutional shielding, relational accompaniment, and entrepreneurial empowerment—that create prolonged protective spaces against oppressive pressures and repair reflexivity gradually until BENs can sustain it on their own. We theorize morpho-regeneration as a custodial practice of “with-in” intervention that restores individual capacities for social and economic participation, enabling more conventional outside-in and inside-up intermediation approaches. Our study offers new insights into the relational dimensions of poverty alleviation and their connection to community-level dynamics, with relevance to other contexts where agency is severely destabilized.
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A Stakeholder Governance Framework for Public–Private Partnerships
Academy of Management Review Africa AriĂąo, Pascual Berrone, Joan E. Ricart, Xavier Sobrepere i ProfitĂłs, Alexis Yong July 07, 2026
Teams Training & Development Social Responsibility Performance Motivation
We advance stakeholder governance theory by theorizing how public–private partnerships (PPPs) can govern relationships with both contributing stakeholders (public and private partners) and legitimate but non-contributing stakeholders in order to create and more equitably distribute value. By integrating insights from stakeholder theory and PPP governance research, we develop a framework that distinguishes three categories of formal-relational mechanisms (i.e., participation and representation, joint integration, and monitoring and transparency). We theorize how these mechanisms mitigate three governance risks common in PPPs—cooperation failure, coordination failure, and opportunistic co-optation—that stem from goal misalignment, deficits in experience-based PPP capabilities, and power imbalances. We further argue that when risks co-occur, governance mechanisms can interact paradoxically. As a result, effective governance often requires portfolios of complementary mechanisms rather than single solutions. Our theory offers a meso-level account of how hybrid collaborations can sustain joint value creation while shaping more equitable value distribution, and contributes to both stakeholder theory and PPP governance research.
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The impact of impression management on writing tendencies: Investigating faking susceptibility of open-ended personality assessments.
Journal of Applied Psychology Andrew B. Speer, Takudzwa Chawota, Cort Rudolph, Amani Qaqish July 06, 2026
Selection & Assessment Individual Differences Artificial Intelligence/Technology Motivation Training & Development
ÂŻ = .63). Training sample configuration also influenced psychometric properties, such that training on a mixed sample of honest and motivated responses yielded the best results. Finally, AI-generated responses (fully synthetic and human-AI hybrid) received scores that varied considerably across models, though they typically were higher than human scores. However, a customized algorithm accurately differentiated human from AI responses with near-perfect accuracy (across seven large language models and for humans using AI), with only a 1% false positive rate. Collectively, these findings suggest that open-ended personality assessments, when paired with natural language processing scoring, have potential to offer a scalable, more faking-resistant approach to personality assessment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Humanizing the frontlines: individuating connections reduce customer mistreatment
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Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Elizabeth N. Trinh, Julia Lee Cunningham July 06, 2026
Networks Performance Health & Well-Being Organizational Change Artificial Intelligence/Technology
Customer mistreatment of frontline service workers persists, even as technological advancements have reshaped how services are delivered. In many service encounters, employees are perceived primarily through their functional role, as instruments of service rather than as people. This paper draws on theories of workplace objectification and customer–employee service interactions to introduce the concept of individuating connections: brief relational moves in service encounters that surface person-revealing cues about the employee, shifting customer's perception from a role-occupant to individual. We propose that individuating connections increase customers' humanization of employees, which in turn reduces mistreatment. Four main studies—a field experiment in a U.S. supermarket chain (Study 1), an in-person dyadic laboratory experiment involving a car sale (Study 2), an online dyadic conversation experiment simulating a hotel exchange (Study 3), and an online dyadic conversation experiment about a restaurant service exchange (Study 4)—as well as two supplemental studies offer convergent evidence supporting this effect. We reveal that small, scalable relational interventions leveraging individuating connections can counteract the objectifying dynamics common in service contexts and meaningfully alter how customers treat the people serving them.
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Justification aversion: The road to more effective defaults
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Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Daniel Banki, Daniel Navarro-Martinez July 06, 2026
Performance Selection & Assessment Training & Development
Default options are one of the most frequently used tools of choice architecture, yet the factors that influence their effectiveness remain imperfectly understood. As a way to improve the effectiveness of defaults, this paper explores the idea of adding a justification requirement if people want to switch away from the default. Across six pre-registered studies, we find a consistent justification aversion effect: Depending on the context, the requirement to justify one's choice results in a 22% to 58% increase in default adherence relative to comparable (non-justification) requirements. This effect is robust to different decision contexts and alternative switching requirements. We test various potential mechanisms, and the evidence is most consistent with image concerns associated with having to justify a socially undesirable deviation from the default. Importantly, image concerns do not appear to undermine socially desirable deviations from defaults.
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Reciprocal relations of recovery activities and employee well-being: A shortitudinal study using the random intercept cross-lagged panel model.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Khalid M. Alameer, Sjir Uitdewilligen, Ute R. HĂźlsheger July 06, 2026
Health & Well-Being Job Attitudes Networks Research Methods Selection & Assessment
The present study builds on conservation of resources theory and the concept of the recovery paradox (Hobfoll, 1989; Sonnentag, 2018) and responds to repeated calls to (a) study recovery processes over midterm time frames of weeks and (b) investigate directions of effects in recovery-well-being relations. Doing so, we employed the recovery activity characteristics approach, a dimensional framework for examining the underlying attributes of recovery activities (physical, social, creative, mental, spiritual, virtual, and outdoor dimensions) and examined the reciprocal lagged relationships between recovery activities and two indicators of employee well-being-emotional exhaustion and work engagement. We use preregistered data from 333 participants answering weekly surveys over an 8-week period to explore how recovery dimensions influence and are influenced by emotional exhaustion and work engagement using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model. Across dimensions, we found little evidence for consistent week-to-week lagged effects between recovery activities and well-being in either direction. One association indicated that higher-than-usual engagement in creative activities was followed by higher work engagement the subsequent week; however, given the number of statistical tests conducted, this finding may reflect a chance result and therefore requires independent replication. Overall, the findings suggest that recovery processes may be temporally bounded, with limited support for delayed within-person carryover effects across working weeks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Behavioral Logic of Formal Governance in Family Businesses: The Moderating Roles of Firm Size and Political Connection
Group & Organization Management Jun Ma, Weicheng Xiao, Jianyu Chen July 06, 2026
Research Methods Networks Performance
While scholarly and practical interests in family businesses’ formal governance have grown substantially, the behavioral logics underlying governance formalization remain poorly understood. We therefore advance two critical behavioral logics, including legitimacy and efficiency logics, and examine how and under what conditions they drive family businesses’ formal governance. Drawing on mixed cross-sectional data from the Chinese Private Enterprise Survey (2000–2014), our results reveal that family businesses’ formal governance reflects an organizational response to both behavioral logics, with their relative influence exhibiting divergent patterns across heterogeneous firm contexts. Specifically, small and medium-sized family businesses and those lacking political connections lean toward legitimacy logic, whereas large family businesses and those with political connections lean toward efficiency logic. These findings suggest that to effectively advance formal governance, family businesses should strategically draw upon both legitimacy and efficiency logics according to their distinctive characteristics, particularly firm size and political identity.
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A Certainty Perspective on Ethical Leadership: Meta-Analytic and Field Studies of Counteracting Mechanisms and a Boundary Condition for Employee Creativity
Journal of Management M Zhang, Chu‐Ding Ling, Jinlong Zhu, Yaping Gong, Xiao‐Yun Xie July 04, 2026
Leadership Social Responsibility Health & Well-Being Networks Performance
Organizations must simultaneously ensure “appropriateness” through adherence to rules and norms while promoting novelty through risk-taking. Ethical leadership, characterized by an emphasis on normatively appropriate conduct and the encouragement of ethical behavior through communication, reinforcement, and decision-making, is increasingly viewed as a way to navigate this tension and enhance creativity—the generation of novel and useful ideas. We modify this positive view by investigating two distinct but not mutually exclusive mechanisms underlying the effects of ethical leadership from a certainty perspective. Specifically, we propose that ethical leadership provides employees with relational certainty, which fosters psychological safety and thereby boosts creativity, and with normative certainty, which promotes conformity and hence constrains creativity. We also identify intolerance of uncertainty as a boundary condition for these countervailing explanations. Across three complementary studies, including a meta-analysis (Study 1) and two field studies with multi-source and multi-wave data (Study 2 and Study 3), the results largely supported our hypotheses. Our research contributes to the literature by introducing a certainty perspective that clarifies both the positive and negative relationships between ethical leadership and employee creativity, as well as by identifying a key boundary condition.
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Movements and Main Street: The Interplay Between Social Movement Framing and Small Businesses’ Responses
Journal of Management Ace Beorchia, Timothy G. Pollock, David Gras July 04, 2026
Networks Training & Development Motivation Performance Organizational Culture
Drawing on framing theory, we theorize how social movements affect social movement–driven small businesses over a movement’s lifecycle. We propose three social movement–driven small business types—originals, casual converts, and zealot converts—and argue that social movements’ diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames will affect these businesses differently during different stages of the social movement’s life cycle. Specifically, we explore the degree to which they integrate the social movement’s values into their businesses during different movement stages, their financial outcomes, the extent to which they contribute to the social movement, and whether they maintain or abandon their value integration post-movement. Our theory highlights the ripple effects that social movements can have on firms that are not the movement’s direct targets and enhances our understanding of the relationship between social movements and small businesses in markets unrelated to the social movement.
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Dual pathways of leader humor to employee creativity: testing a serial mediation model
Journal of Managerial Psychology Kiho Jun, Joonghak Lee, Jieun Kim, Jeeyoung Kim July 04, 2026
Research Methods Leadership Motivation Selection & Assessment Performance
Purpose Creativity is essential in the workplace as it drives innovation and organizational growth. Although leader humor has been identified as an important antecedent of employee creativity, the psychological mechanisms through which it operates remain insufficiently understood. Grounded in Cognitive Evaluation Theory, this study proposes a serial mediation model to elucidate the pathways through which leader humor influences followers' creativity. We posit that leader humor enhances followers' intrinsic motivation through improved leader–member exchange (LMX) quality and positive affect, and that this heightened intrinsic motivation, in turn, fosters followers' creativity. Design/methodology/approach This study used four-wave data from 357 employees in the USA, providing strong support for our hypotheses. Findings The findings indicate that leader humor influences followers' creativity indirectly through two distinct serial mediation pathways: a relational–motivational pathway, wherein leader humor enhances LMX quality, which subsequently fosters intrinsic motivation, and an affective–motivational pathway, wherein leader humor elicits positive affect that functions as an informational signal enhancing intrinsic motivation – both pathways ultimately promoting creativity. Originality/value Our contribution introduces a comprehensive model to explore how leader humor influences followers' creativity.
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Women’s Entrepreneurship in Multi-Level Contexts: A Review and Research Agenda
Journal of Management Yue Wang, Liyan Wang July 03, 2026
Research Methods Networks Organizational Culture Organizational Change Diversity & Inclusion
Persistent and multifaceted gender differences in entrepreneurship, alongside the heterogeneous landscape of women’s entrepreneurial activity worldwide, have attracted increasing scholarly attention. As this body of research has expanded substantially, a comprehensive synthesis is both timely and necessary. To address this need, we adopt an integrative review approach, analyzing 458 studies published in journals ranked 3 to 4* in the 2024 ABS Academic Journal Guide between 1998 and 2025. Drawing on a three-level contextual model, we situate women’s entrepreneurship within institutional (macro), socio-relational (meso), and individual (micro) contexts. We distill four overarching theoretical themes that structure current scholarship: (1) normative and cognitive mechanisms underlying gendered outcomes; (2) tangible structures shaping gendered entrepreneurship; (3) social-relational contexts bridging macro- to micro-level contexts; and (4) women entrepreneurs as agents of contextual change. Within each theme, we synthesize key mechanisms, compare theoretical perspectives, and identify avenues for future research. Our review makes three contributions: first, we advance women’s entrepreneurship research with a framework that captures the multiplicity and interaction of overlapping institutional, socio-relational, and individual contexts in which women’s entrepreneurship is embedded; second, we highlight the multi-level nature of contexts, particularly the mediating role of meso-level socio-relational dynamics between macro-level institutions and micro-level outcomes; third, we position women entrepreneurs as active agents who collectively reshape the meso- and macro-level contexts.
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Risk, Fit, and the Hiring Decision: A Prospect Theory Perspective on Skilled Migrant Assessment
International Journal of Selection and Assessment Thi Tuyet Tran, Shamika Almeida July 03, 2026
Selection & Assessment Performance Leadership Organizational Culture Diversity & Inclusion
ABSTRACT This study examines how hiring decisions involving skilled migrants are shaped under conditions of uncertainty and why highly qualified migrants remain underutilised in host labour markets. Drawing on prospect theory and qualitative data from 105 Asian skilled migrants and 24 Australian recruiters, we analyse how decision‐makers evaluate and respond to perceived recruitment risks. The findings show that recruiters tend to rely on short‐term, reference‐dependent evaluations, prioritising immediate “fit” and minimising uncertainty, while skilled migrants approach employment decisions as longer‐term investments, often accepting initial underemployment as a strategic pathway. This mismatch in decision frames leads to divergent interpretations of the same candidate attributes and contributes to persistent underutilisation of skills. By unpacking the micro‐level mechanisms of framing, reference points, and risk behaviour, the study advances the selection and assessment literature beyond static notions of bias and fit. By revealing how differing decision frames shape hiring outcomes, the study contributes a new perspective on skilled migrant assessment, and highlights the value of prospect theory for understanding recruitment decisions under uncertainty.
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Faking Ipsative Questionnaires: The Role of General Mental Ability and Ability to Identify Criteria
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Journal of Business and Psychology Miriam Fuechtenhans, Anna Brown July 02, 2026
Individual Differences Selection & Assessment Research Methods Performance Leadership
Abstract Questionnaires in ipsative (relative-to-self) formats ask respondents to compare several stimuli, for example behaviors or personal characteristics, at a time. Since it is impossible to endorse all desirable stimuli, the ipsative formats are often used in high-stakes personality assessments to reduce impression management (aka ‘faking good’). However, their high cognitive complexity may contaminate the intended measurement of personality with cognitive abilities. This study investigated the role of general mental ability (GMA) and the Ability to Identify Criteria (ATIC) in faking personality assessments utilizing a ‘graded preference’ format, scored normatively using Thurstonian modeling. We recruited N = 200 participants who completed the Leadership Style Questionnaire (de Klerk-van Someren et al., 2023) under two conditions: imagining they are applying for a specified job ( high-stakes condition) and responding normally ( low-stakes condition). In both completions, participants’ response latencies and click counts were recorded. The results indicate that participants can improve their scores on job-relevant traits, but effect sizes are small to medium (0.26 to 0.47). Participants with higher GMA tend to inflate their scores more, and participants with higher ATIC produce personality profiles that closer match the target job when faking. Through cross-classified path analysis, we unpick effects at block and person level and show that criteria recognition is the main driver for targeted increases in personality scores, and strategic editing of responses is the most plausible explanation for increased response latencies and click counts when faking. We also suggest that in repeated measures faking studies, high-stakes condition should precede low stakes.
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Stabilizing the ground beneath our feet: Reflections on the shifting sands of diversity, equity and inclusion ( DEI )
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology T. Alexandra Beauregard, Luke Fletcher July 02, 2026
Diversity & Inclusion Organizational Culture Selection & Assessment Job Attitudes Individual Differences
Abstract This invited commentary presents our personal reflections upon the evolving diversity, equality/equity and inclusion (DEI) landscape since the publication of our review, Fletcher and Beauregard's (2022) 'The psychology of diversity and its implications for workplace (in)equality: Looking back at the last decade and forward to the next'. We highlight a shift from widespread institutional support to increased political and legal contestation, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. Despite declining organizational emphasis on DEI terminology, scholarly interest remains strong and increasingly interdisciplinary. Recent research advances understanding of workplace diversity through empirical, theoretical and perspective‐based contributions, though much remains fragmented across single identity categories. We call for greater integration of intersectionality and expanded theoretical frameworks, including relational inequality theory, to better capture structural and relational dynamics. We also recommend assessing the influence of broader cultural and socio‐political events on workplace diversity climates and attitudes and behaviours towards minoritized groups. Drawing on diverse data sources, we advocate for more reflexive, systemic approaches to DEI research and practice.
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Partnerships for Social Cohesion and Social Impact: How Corporate‐Community Co‐Development Constitutes an Impactful HR Initiative
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Human Resource Management Cristina B. Gibson, Jennifer Gibbs, Nitzan Navick, Kimberly McGinnis July 02, 2026
Training & Development HR Systems & Talent Management Social Responsibility Networks Selection & Assessment
ABSTRACT Organizational scholars have begun to recognize the importance of social cohesion, but we know little about how it can lead to broader social impact, and even less about the role of human resource management (HRM) in these processes. To investigate this link, we examined corporate community co‐development as a particularly impactful HRM initiative. The program involved a Silicon Valley technology company partnering with five nonprofit organizations. Our study comprised a comprehensive mixed‐method longitudinal design involving 62 interviews and 382 h of field observations combined with a large‐scale quantitative survey ( n = 1101). The findings reveal that HR managers not only facilitated the logistics of the program but also helped to create three generative tensions: the balancing of belonging and uniqueness, of the familiar and the unfamiliar, and of within‐sector and across‐sector connections. HRM helped participants navigate these tensions through specific processes that combined human and social capital to develop social cohesion. We also empirically demonstrate that social cohesion was positively associated with social impact in both the company and the nonprofits.
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Shifting perspectives: How daily work interruptions relate to interrupters' work engagement
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Journal of Vocational Behavior Leon Toebben, Sabine Sonnentag July 02, 2026
Job Attitudes Motivation Research Methods Performance Training & Development
Past research studied how daily work intrusions – unexpected interruptions by other employees that suspend ongoing work – reduce interrupted employees' work engagement. We shift perspectives to employees who interrupt and examine how intrusions may be positively related to job resources conducive to interrupting employees' work engagement. In doing so, we differentiate between four intrusion types derived from key reasons for intrusions. We expect these intrusion types to serve distinct functions for interrupting employees, allowing them to attain different job resources. Building on the motivational process of the job demands-resources model, we hypothesize that performing intrusions is positively associated with interrupting employees' work engagement by contributing to three social job resources: received task support, belongingness, and prosocial impact. We report findings from a two-week diary study with two daily measurement occasions ( N = 390 employees; n = 3383 days). Multilevel path analysis showed that three of the four intrusion types were indirectly positively related to interrupting employees' work engagement via the three social job resources. Altogether, we contribute to a more nuanced understanding of intrusions by studying two important yet overlooked aspects of intrusions: the interrupting employees and their reasons for intrusions. Our new approach to examining intrusions suggests that intrusions can facilitate work engagement.
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The power of perceiving: exploring the associations between empathic accuracy and leader-member exchange
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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Sarah Elizabeth Cameron, Joeri Hofmans July 02, 2026
Leadership Networks Selection & Assessment Performance Training & Development
Emotion theories across psychological disciplines (social, organizational, and clinical) posit that the accurate perception of others’ emotions facilitates the achievement of various relational, performance and wellbeing related outcomes. In the organizational psychology domain, scholars have traditionally assessed this ability through the use of static, individualistic, maximum performance-based tests. Such approaches, however, overlook the dynamic, social context in which emotions are expressed and perceived. To address this limitation, we implemented the Unstructured Dyadic Interaction Paradigm, a protocol typically used in the study of romantic relationships. This protocol captures how empathic accuracy (EA) – the ability to accurately perceive the feelings of an interaction partner – manifests in real interactions. In our study, 49 leader-follower dyads participated in discussions designed to elicit negative and positive emotions and completed measures of EA and Leader-Member Exchange (LMX). Leader EA was positively associated with follower ratings of LMX quality during the negative discussion scenario, but not during the positive discussion scenario. Our findings contribute to the emotions and leadership literatures by addressing a previous theory-methods misfit, offering first evidence of the importance of EA in the work context, and by pointing to potential boundary conditions of this ability.
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Newcomers Flying Solo: Why, How, and for Whom Perceived Experience Creates Adjustment Challenges
Journal of Management Alex L. Rubenstein, F N Chen, John D. Kammeyer‐Mueller, Mo Wang, Lin Wang July 01, 2026
Performance Research Methods Selection & Assessment Health & Well-Being Networks
In this study, we examine the relationships between perceived experience and newcomer adjustment outcomes. Drawing from Feedback Seeking Behavior theory, we challenge the assumption that greater perceived experience is universally beneficial during organizational entry. We propose that greater perceived experience could impair adjustment outcomes (i.e., job performance, work stress, and social disconnectedness) through two mechanisms: increased self-reliance beliefs and perceived risk of information seeking. In a field study of 243 new hires, we found evidence consistent with several of our predictions. Additionally, we found that openness to experience significantly weakened the relationships between perceived experience and self-reliance beliefs and risk of information seeking, as well as to subsequent adjustment outcomes (i.e., moderated mediation). Our research highlights the potential liabilities of starting a new job with greater perceived experience, turning attention to the factors that might inhibit proactive socialization efforts, while also examining openness as a key moderator of these effects.
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Neurodiversity and Leader Selection: Parity in Evaluations Amid Enduring Interpersonal Prototypes
Group & Organization Management Quinetta M. Roberson, Joie Magalona, Narda R. Quigley July 01, 2026
Selection & Assessment Performance Leadership Research Methods Organizational Culture
Organizations increasingly promote neurodiversity in hiring, yet it remains unclear how candidates whose materials signal neurodiversity-related affiliation are evaluated in leadership selection. Drawing on implicit leadership and role congruity theories, dominant schemas would predict reduced perceived leadership effectiveness for candidates who deviate from interpersonal prototypes. In contrast, person-job and person-role fit perspectives suggest more contingent evaluations aligned with role demands. In an experimental study of 99 adults with hiring experience, participants evaluated matched candidates whose biographies either included or did not include neurodiversity-related signals across leadership roles emphasizing interpersonal skills, problem-solving, or innovation. Contrary to schema-based predictions of generalized disadvantage, candidates signaling neurodiversity-related affiliation were evaluated similarly to, and in some cases modestly more favorably than, those without such signals on perceived leadership effectiveness. However, evaluators showed a consistent preference for interpersonal leadership roles regardless of candidate identity. This pattern of evaluative parity alongside enduring relational preferences suggests increasing flexibility in leadership schemas even as interpersonal norms remain influential.
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Proactive Personality and Creativity: Autonomy and Information Processing as Substitutes in Trait Activation
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Journal of Business and Psychology Daan van Knippenberg, Saleem Mistry, Bradley L. Kirkman, Giles Hirst, Jia Li June 30, 2026
Individual Differences Job Design Research Methods Performance Networks
Individual creativity is crucial for organizations, driving research into its determinants. Although studies have explored how individual traits and situational factors interact to influence creativity, our understanding of how situational variables themselves interact in moderating trait–creativity relationships is incomplete. Complementing research showing that situational variables can have mutually enhancing effects in moderating trait–creativity relationships, we argue that situational variables can also substitute for each other’s influence when they are functionally equivalent, such that the influence of the one on the trait–creativity relationship is weaker at higher levels of the other—a phenomenon we call situation substitution. Based on person-in-situation theory and the notion of functional equivalence, we examine how job autonomy and job information–processing requirements interact to moderate the proactive personality–creativity relationship. Results from a sample of 299 subordinate-supervisor dyads show that autonomy and information processing have similar trait-activating effects in the proactive personality–creativity relationships, such that they substitute for each other’s influence (i.e., the moderating effect of the one is weaker at higher levels of the other). Our study underscores the inter-connection of situational interactions and highlights the importance of understanding these dynamics for fostering creativity in organizations.
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Workplace resilience in the face of death: the generative power of mortality reflection
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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Ying Xu, Yumeng Yue, Yangyang Zhang, Jingzhou Pan June 30, 2026
Performance Motivation Job Attitudes Research Methods Health & Well-Being
Extreme contexts characterized by heightened mortality salience (e.g. pandemics, disasters) significantly disrupt individual and organizational functioning. Previous research has largely focused on how to minimize damage caused by such disruption while paying little attention to how employees may draw on these experiences to cultivate new capabilities. This study draws on mortality awareness theories to examine the often-overlooked yet potentially constructive role of Death Reflection. Using four-wave time-lagged survey data (N = 246) collected in China during COVID-19 pandemic, we find that perceived mortality-crisis strength (PMCS) is associated not only with increased Death Anxiety but also with greater Death Reflection. Furthermore, PMCS relates to In-Role Performance through the sequential mediation of Death Reflection and Achievement Motivation, and to organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) through Death Reflection and Prosocial Motivation. Job resources further amplify the positive link between PMCS and Death Reflection, as well as these indirect effects. Our research provides insights into the mechanisms through which employees engage in Death Reflection and respond to crises involving mortality threats with resilient behaviours. Moreover, it offers practical implications for managing mortality reflection and generative responses in extreme contexts.
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A dyadic training to promote technology‐related learning and development among age‐diverse employees: The power of coworkers' enthusiasm
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Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Patrick Vestner, Julian Pfrombeck, Kilian Hampel, Anne Burmeister June 29, 2026
Training & Development Teams Diversity & Inclusion Artificial Intelligence/Technology Selection & Assessment
Abstract Age diversity and digitalization create challenges and opportunities for learning and development in organizations. In this study, we designed and tested an age diversity training for digitized work contexts to promote informal workplace learning in age‐diverse coworker dyads. The dyadic training frames age differences as an untapped developmental opportunity at digitized workplaces, enabling younger and older coworkers to benefit from each other's complementary resources. By integrating theoretical perspectives on informal learning and training transfer, we conceptualize digital collaboration readiness as a self‐regulatory transfer mechanism linking the training to developmental outcomes. We further recognize the social context as a catalyst for individual and mutual learning and argue that training effectiveness is bound by co‐learner's enthusiasm about digital technologies. Based on a randomized controlled field experiment with 167 age‐diverse dyads ( N = 334 employees), our results showed that the training had a positive conditional indirect effect on technology exploration and mutual learning via digital collaboration readiness if the dyad partner was more enthusiastic about technology. Our research advances the literature at the intersection of age diversity and digitalization by delineating how and when the age diversity training for digitized work contexts can enhance workplace learning. This study also promotes the advancement of evidence‐based management of age‐diverse workforces.
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Employee health and performance promotion through the off‐job crafting intervention: A randomized crossover trial
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Miika Kujanpää, Claus W. Frølund, Etty R. Nilsen, Anja H. Olafsen June 29, 2026
Performance Health & Well-Being Organizational Change Job Design Training & Development
Abstract In an increasingly boundaryless work‐life, effective interventions are needed to ensure recovery and diminish work stress. A randomized controlled trial with a crossover design was conducted to test the effectiveness of an off‐job crafting intervention on recovery experiences and employee health and performance. Knowledge workers ( n = 136) from three organizations took part in workshops on avoidance‐ and approach‐focused crafting, and crafted their off‐job recovery time during a 2‐week training period after each workshop. The intervention increased all off‐job crafting strategies and recovery experiences (except mastery experiences) and reduced work stress with a medium effect size. Performance was not significantly impacted by the intervention. Intervention component effects revealed that it was the approach (rather than avoidance) component which produced the positive effects of the intervention for recovery experiences and employee health, particularly through crafting for autonomy. Moreover, the approach component resulted in increases in both approach‐ and avoidance‐focused crafting. The results underscore that off‐job crafting provides a useful conceptual mechanism for depicting behavioural change processes in recovery interventions.
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When my coworker voices similar ideas to mine: Effects of dyadic idea similarity for future voice
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Yue Zhu, Tai-Kuang Peng, Jinyun Duan, Xiaotian Wang June 29, 2026
Performance Training & Development Organizational Culture
Abstract Holding similar work‐related views is common in organizations. Employees who develop ideas but refrain from speaking up may recognize this similarity when they observe coworkers expressing similar ideas to managers. Drawing on social comparison theory, we propose that dyadic idea similarity—the extent to which a non‐voicing employee's latent ideas and a coworker's voiced ideas overlap—serves as a self‐relevant comparison cue in coworker voice episodes. Observing a coworker voicing similar ideas can elicit two processes: an assimilation effect that enhances the non‐voicing employee's efficacy in generating voice ideas and a contrast effect that undermines efficacy in expressing voice ideas. We further argue that these effects are contingent on voice norms, such that the consequences of social comparison for voice‐related self‐efficacy are more pronounced when voice norms are encouraging, with implications for subsequent voice. Across three scenario experiments and an experience‐recall experiment, results suggest that assimilation and contrast pathways are contingent on voice norms. Our study taps a novel phenomenon of dyadic idea similarity and extends knowledge of voicer–observer dyadic interactions, contributing to the literature on voice and voice efficacy.
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Workplace Allyship: An Integrative Review and Agenda for Future Research
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Maria Funk, Silja Hartmann, Alexander Newman June 29, 2026
Diversity & Inclusion Training & Development Job Attitudes Social Responsibility Networks
ABSTRACT Workplace allyship has emerged as a key construct in the literature on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Although research on workplace allyship has expanded rapidly in recent years, advancement in this research stream is limited by conceptual ambiguity and fragmentation across numerous perspectives. In this integrative review, we address these limitations. First, we examine differences in how workplace allyship has been conceptualized in the workplace and develop three definitions reflecting key perspectives on workplace allyship: (1) engagement in workplace allyship by advantaged employees, (2) perceived workplace allyship by disadvantaged employees, and (3) the relational dynamics of workplace allyship between advantaged and disadvantaged employees. Second, we develop a conceptual model grounded in social identity theory and signaling theory that integrates these three perspectives. Third, based on this model, we synthesize and structure prior empirical research to develop an integrative framework of workplace allyship. Building on this framework, we propose a comprehensive agenda for future research. Overall, this review provides new insights into workplace allyship as a mechanism for creating and sustaining social equality within and beyond organizational boundaries.
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Specialized Roles and Task Allocation in Organizations
Organization Science Jillian Chown, Carlos Inoue June 29, 2026
Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance Individual Differences Networks
Organizations often struggle to deploy specialized expertise where it creates the most value. We argue that specialized roles help address this challenge by codifying expertise into formal positions that function as allocative infrastructure, channeling work to appropriate professionals. We test this argument in Brazilian maternity wards that introduced a new specialized nursing role. Using data on more than 15 million births and a difference-in-differences design, we show that the introduction of this role is associated with improved matching between expertise and client needs. These effects are stronger when client demand is higher, workflows are more predictable, and organizational experience is greater. A simulation analysis indicates that these improvements go beyond compositional changes, reflecting the system’s enhanced ability to route patients to appropriate providers. Improved matching is also linked to better maternal and newborn outcomes. Together, our findings extend research on task allocation by theorizing roles as allocative infrastructure and identifying organizational conditions under which specialization improves matching in professional work. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2025.20444 .
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Criminal Deception in Silicon Valley
Organization Science Tim Weiss, Nevena Radoynovska June 29, 2026
Performance Job Attitudes Organizational Culture Training & Development Networks
With entrepreneurial fraud cases on the rise, we investigate how entrepreneurs carry out criminal deception, employing deceptive means to defraud audiences. Analyzing court data from Silicon Valley ventures and their founders prosecuted for fraud between 2000 and 2023, our findings reveal that entrepreneurs carry out criminal deception through a process of façading: Entrepreneurs construct, perform, and protect illusory appearances (façades) that externally project high-growth performance to audiences while masking ventures’ actual underperformance. We identify three forms of façading—surface, reinforced, and deep façading—that are contingent on the severity of the gap that entrepreneurs face between audiences’ performance expectations and ventures’ performance reality. Our theoretical framework captures how entrepreneurs facing minor, wide, and extreme expectation-reality gaps engage in evermore sophisticated efforts to detach the venture’s externally projected appearance from its actual operational reality. Practically, we propose several approaches to deter and detect criminal deception, including the extension of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission surveillance and whistleblower program, investor due diligence reform, and dedicated entrepreneurship education interventions that clearly demarcate when entrepreneurs transgress into criminal deception. We make contributions to literatures on cultural entrepreneurship, organizational wrongdoing, and the social effects of entrepreneurship. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2024.19981 .
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Bottoms Up: Microentry Nonmarket Strategies to Change State Policy
Organization Science Eppa Rixey June 29, 2026
Organizational Change Motivation Job Attitudes Artificial Intelligence/Technology Research Methods
How do small firms overcome regulatory constraints despite opposition from entrenched interests? Microentry strategies enable small firms to compete with larger incumbents in markets, but exploration of such strategies in nonmarket arenas is limited. Existing research suggests that, when firms face regulatory constraints, they often venue shift upward, for example, overturning a local ban by lobbying for statewide legislation. This article uses qualitative data on craft breweries to identify and analyze a set of microentry nonmarket strategies through which firms engage locally, venue shifting downward from state to local regulators, to successfully ease state-level constraints from the bottom up. In public hearings with city officials, entrepreneurs aligned local investment tactics and supportive coalitions with an iterative approach that motivated city-based regulators to challenge state-level restrictions on direct-to-consumer (DTC) business models that are favorable to smaller firms. Experimenting locally with the discretionary use of “event” licenses for ongoing DTC beer sales led to an accumulation of bottom-up support across locales. This support included relational infrastructure and policy-relevant information that enabled entrepreneurs to work through city officials to overcome incumbent opposition. By elaborating how small firms and local officials together create punctuations in a state-level policy monopoly and analyzing both the antecedents and consequences, this study builds a theory of microentry nonmarket strategy and bottom-up policy change. Even in a mature industry with well-institutionalized regulations, powerful incumbents opposing changes, and minimal technological change, small businesses reshaped the policy environment of an entire state from the bottom up. Funding: This work was supported by the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Shining a Light on Dark Money in Corporate Politics: Unveiling CEO Ideology’s Influence on Corporate Political Transparency
Journal of Management Mirzokhidjon Abdurakhmonov, Amy Ingram, Jason W. Ridge June 29, 2026
Organizational Culture Performance Turnover & Retention Research Methods
Although calls for firms to disclose their political spending have intensified, nonmarket strategy scholars have yet to explain why some firms embrace corporate political transparency (CPT) while others remain opaque. We theorize that CEO political ideology serves as a critical antecedent of CPT. We argue that liberal CEOs, valuing stakeholder accountability, favor CPT, whereas conservative CEOs, prioritizing shareholder primacy and reputational control, resist it. We further argue that the effect of CEO ideology on CPT depends on contextual factors that shape the discretion CEOs retain in navigating CPT trade-offs. Using a sample of publicly traded firms covered by the Zicklin CPT Index, we find that CEO liberalism increases CPT, but this effect weakens when firm-specific political uncertainty is high, when industry-level transparency norms are strong, and when industry concentration is high. Our study recasts CPT as a value-infused choice contingent on boundary conditions that influence managerial discretion, extends upper echelons theory into the political arena, and advances political activity research.
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Shift Happens During Change: Appraisal Shifts and Employee Proactive Support for Organizational Change
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Journal of Management Rouven Kanitz, Leander De Schutter, Julia Backmann, Tina Kiefer, Mel Fugate, et al. June 29, 2026
Organizational Change Training & Development Networks Artificial Intelligence/Technology Performance
Employees’ self-initiated and active behaviors to improve organizational change design and implementation (i.e., proactive support) are a critical determinant of effective organizational change. Despite organizational change being an inherently dynamic phenomenon, research has largely adopted a static view with little attention to the temporal development of employee responses to change. We build on appraisal theory to examine how shifts (increases vs. decreases) and stability (consistently high vs. low) in employees’ appraisals of work-related benefits of change are associated with proactive support over time. Using cross-level polynomial regression with two-wave survey data (Study 1; n = 267) from a technology firm undergoing change, we find the highest levels of proactive support when employees experience an increase in work-related benefit appraisals between Time 1 and Time 2, compared to all other patterns including a stable pattern of high benefits over time. Results further show that even a decrease in benefit appraisals, compared to consistently low benefit appraisals, predicts higher levels of proactive support for change. The relationships between shifts in benefit appraisals and proactive support are largely replicated in Study 2, an experiment (n = 523). This study also illustrates that positive emotions help to explain why the experience of shifting appraisals matters for employee proactive support for change. Our research highlights the role of temporal shifts in appraisals and provides important implications for organizational change-related theory, research, and practice.
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Bridging the Gap: An Integrative Review of Research on Veterans’ Transition to the Civilian Workforce
Journal of Management John P. Jasionowicz, MarĂ­a del Carmen Triana, Timothy J. Vogus, Jorge Delgado June 29, 2026
Training & Development Individual Differences Health & Well-Being Job Design
The uniformed personnel who deploy around the world provide a key service to their country and often do so by putting themselves in dangerous situations to defend peace and security for others. After serving, military veterans face a challenging transition into civilian life and workplaces. In this review, we describe the importance of understanding the extreme context of veterans’ transitions and then integrate multidisciplinary research on veterans to identify the conditions under which the transition is successful (or not). Specifically, our review identifies how and under what conditions the knowledge, skills, and abilities of veterans translate to the civilian workforce, the employment outcomes (successes or failures) seen during the transition to the civilian workforce, and how employment opportunities increase the wellness of veterans. Throughout the review, we illustrate how incorporating the experiences of veterans can advance management theory on social identity, stigma, unemployment, intersectionality, and careers. In parallel, we highlight how management theory can help contextualize and enrich the study of veterans. We also distill insights from research into tools and practices that can improve civilian employment outcomes for veterans. Finally, we discuss an agenda for management research that enhances the experience of veterans and management theory by complicating the process of stigmatization and its resolution, positively reframing social identity, learning from veteran employment programs, exploring intersectional identities of veterans, and including veterans in the study of careers.
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Daily need experiences across office and remote workdays
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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Anja H. Olafsen, Miika Kujanpää, Andreas Stenling, Susanne Tafvelin, Marte Bentzen June 27, 2026
Remote Work Performance Motivation Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being
Despite substantial scholarly interest in remote work, research has primarily examined its effects on well-being at a broader, between-person level, overlooking daily fluctuations in employees’ experiences across work locations. Drawing on self-determination theory, we investigate fluctuations in psychological need experiences and energy levels as a function of work location, distinguishing between office workdays and remote workdays. Data was collected from 187 employees three times per day over ten workdays, yielding a total of 2,933 diary entries. Results showed that remote working days were positively associated with daily autonomy satisfaction while negatively associated with daily relatedness satisfaction. Working remotely also yielded more stable energy levels throughout the day. Autonomy satisfaction was linked to lower energy decline, while autonomy and competence satisfaction also flattened the afternoon drop. Remote working days predicted higher energy in the afternoon and evening through autonomy satisfaction. While autonomy frustration increased energy depletion across the day, need frustration was unrelated to work location. This study advances understanding of hybrid work’s nuanced effects on daily well-being, emphasizing the particular importance of autonomy satisfaction in energy maintenance.
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Moving Beyond the Minimum Viable Product in Hyper-Constrained Contexts: The Generative Power of Constraints Work
Organization Science Hila Lifshitz‐Assaf, Steven Randazzo, Olivia Jung June 26, 2026
Performance Training & Development Leadership Research Methods
In a world of increasingly numerous and contradictory constraints, this study reveals how individuals can navigate hyper-constrained contexts to rapidly develop new deployable products. We draw on an in-depth field study of seven projects developing affordable, open-source ventilators in just 75 days during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Our analysis shows that innovation outcomes are fundamentally shaped by what we call “constraints work”—how individuals actively deal with and manage constraints—and find two types of constraints work that lead to divergent processes and outcomes. Four projects conducted “reductionist constraints work” as they scanned, prioritized, and sequenced the key constraints. They then followed the well-known lean innovation process to sprint to a functioning minimum viable product (MVP). In contrast, three projects counterintuitively slowed down at the outset to conduct “generative constraints work,” extreme mapping the full landscape of constraints and loading the design space even with additional hidden constraints. They then followed a “multiplex innovation process,” surfacing interdependencies among constraints and treating the resulting contradictions as design problems to be solved simultaneously. This process resulted in deployable products that went beyond the MVP, surpassing experts’ expectations. Regarding temporal pace, the multiplex innovation process entailed V-shaped acceleration (braking at the start, resisting the time pressure to confront the full complexity of tensions, and then, sharply accelerating to resolve them in parallel), whereas the lean innovation process entailed a linear acceleration. Our findings contribute to theories of innovation and new product development processes and temporality, advancing understanding of how individuals can successfully navigate an excess of multiple, contradictory constraints. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16727 .
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Employees' perceived leader mindfulness and employee resilience: the role of psychological safety and perceived hostile team climate
Journal of Managerial Psychology Jing Zhang, Huiya Chen, Limei Chen, Huijuan Kong June 26, 2026
Teams Social Responsibility Health & Well-Being Leadership Organizational Culture
Purpose Drawing on social information processing theory, this study explores the relationship between employees' perceived leader mindfulness and employee resilience via psychological safety, and the moderating role of perceived hostile team climate. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses were tested via a two-wave survey of 334 employees from four organizations in China, analyzed using Mplus 9.0. Findings Employees' perceived leader mindfulness was positively related to employee resilience, mediated by psychological safety, and moderated by perceived hostile team climate. Practical implications Organizations should train leaders to demonstrate observable mindful behaviors and foster psychological safety to build employee resilience. Proactive monitoring and interventions targeting hostile team climates are also recommended to sustain these benefits. Originality/value This study advances understanding of how employees' perceived leader mindfulness relates to employee resilience and identify perceived hostile team climate as a boundary condition.
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The relationship between bottom-line mentality and knowledge hiding: a moderated mediation model
Journal of Managerial Psychology Peiyu Yu Qin, Hui Chen, Christina G. L. Nerstad, Nan Zheng, Jie Liu, et al. June 26, 2026
Research Methods Networks Performance Leadership Selection & Assessment
Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions between negative leadership and employees' knowledge-related behaviors. Specifically, this study identifies effort-reward imbalance (ERI) as a mediating mechanism linking supervisor bottom-line mentality (BLM) to employee knowledge hiding, and investigates the extent to which this mediated relationship is moderated by employee perceived performance climate. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on conservation of resource theory, this study conducted a three-wave online survey among 305 employees to test the proposed moderated mediation model. Findings First, supervisor BLM was positively related to employee ERI. Second, ERI mediates the positive relationship between supervisor BLM and employee knowledge hiding. Third, perceived performance climate moderated the indirect relationship between BLM and knowledge hiding via ERI, such that this association was stronger when perceived performance climate was high. Originality/value This study adopts a moderated mediation model. First, it advances the ERI framework by highlighting its role as a psychological mechanism through which leadership shapes knowledge-related behaviors. Additionally, this study demonstrates that perceived performance climate moderates this relationship, emphasizing the role of work climate in shaping ERI and employee behaviors. These contributions offer a more comprehensive understanding of how contextual factors influence knowledge-related behaviors.
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Buffer or burden? The conditional effect of supervisor support on work-family conflict and wellbeing under backlash
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Work & Stress Lara Bertola, Mara Martini, Lara Colombo, Barbara Loera June 25, 2026
Health & Well-Being Research Methods Performance Leadership Conflict
Supervisor support plays a key role in ensuring employee well-being, but little research has examined the conditions under which its effects are enhanced or mitigated. Drawing on the job demands–resources (JD–R) model and conservation of resources (COR) theory, in this study we propose that work-family conflict (WFC) mediates the relationship between supervisor support and employee well-being (i.e. emotional exhaustion and disengagement) and that perceived work-family backlash moderates the effectiveness of supervisor support. We used a mixed methods approach: a cross-sectional survey (N = 203 employees) and a qualitative phase with 16 supervisors and 78 employees of a multinational manufacturing company. The quantitative results show that supervisor support is negatively associated with emotional exhaustion and disengagement, both directly and indirectly by reducing work-family conflict. The strength of these relationships depends on the perceived backlash: when the backlash is low, the positive effects of supervisor support are stronger; when the backlash is high, these effects weaken. The qualitative analysis evidence that organisational culture regarding employees’ family needs in the is crucial in influencing the quality of life at work. This study also provides practical implications for fostering effective support systems that promote employee resilience in different organisational contexts.
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The outcomes of illegitimate tasks at work: A meta-analysis.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Chenyang Li, Ahmed Mostafa June 25, 2026
Job Attitudes Research Methods Performance Measurement & Psychometrics Health & Well-Being
= 65,124) quantitatively examines the consequences of illegitimate tasks across three domains: attitudinal (affective commitment, job satisfaction, work engagement, and turnover intentions), well-being (negative affect, burnout, and work-family conflict), and behavioral (job performance, innovative behavior, organizational citizenship behavior, counterproductive work behavior, and work withdrawal behavior). We also compare the relationships between the two dimensions of illegitimate tasks-unreasonable tasks and unnecessary tasks-and related outcomes to assess their differential predictive validity. Furthermore, we investigate the potential moderating effects of sociodemographic factors (power distance and age) and methodological factors (rating source and measurement time lag). In light of the findings, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Technology (Non)Emergence: How System Interdependencies Among Activities by Heterogeneous Actors Shaped Alternative Solar Technology Trajectories
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Organization Science Mara Guerra, Rajshree Agarwal June 23, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Training & Development Health & Well-Being HR Systems & Talent Management Measurement & Psychometrics
We examine industry and technology (non)emergence by integrating actor-centric and systems perspective literature streams. We use historical methods to analyze rich data tracking investments by actors spanning private, public, and academic sectors in the solar photovoltaics context. The industry took several decades after commercialization to emerge; moreover, silicon and thin film technologies experienced divergent fates despite firm takeoff. By uncovering critical interdependencies across activities by different actors, we show that, whereas attention by all actors to developing various elements of technological systems is necessary for emergence, it may not be sufficient. The industry emerged after activities by technology producers, industry associations, and government agencies ensured stable institutional support that stimulated latent demand (by utilities and end consumers) and created reinforcing loops among activities by technology producers and research institutes for solar technologies to become a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Moreover, silicon experienced additional reinforcing loops in demand-side and supply-side ecosystems, wherein technology producers and equipment manufacturers leveraged adjacent mature supply chains to meet demand-side scale and reliability requirements in fast growing markets. In contrast, thin film experienced balancing loops wherein nascent firm-specific supply side alliances could not address these demand side needs. These findings showcase how dominant designs may emerge even when there is no ex ante competitive dynamics among technology producers: Although silicon may have benefited from first mover advantage at the technology level, our study highlights that ecosystem first mover advantages of silicon relative to thin film were particularly salient in their divergent fates. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.17185 .
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When Algorithmic Management Plays an Intermediary Role in Worker-Organization Relationships: A Social Exchange Perspective
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Organizational Psychology Review Antoine Bujold, Marie‐Claude Gaudet, Xavier Parent‐Rocheleau June 23, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Networks Training & Development Research Methods Performance
This article applies social exchange theory (SET) principles to the context of algorithmic management (AM), where algorithmic systems act as a technological intermediary between workers and organization. We propose a theoretical model that examines how AM shapes worker-organization social exchange relationships. We posit that organizational choices regarding AM shape system materiality, which workers evaluate through heuristic signals of procedural, informational, and distributive justice. These justice evaluations provide cognitive bases for workers’ trust in the AM system, which in turn shapes trust in the organization. This organizational trust reinforces the norm of reciprocity, fostering workers’ reciprocative behaviors toward the organization. Our model suggests that traditional social exchange principles apply to algorithmically mediated worker-organization relationships, yet require some theoretical modification, offering both theoretical insights and practical guidance for AM use.
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LMX differentiation and knowledge hiding: the roles of LMX ambivalence and social comparison orientation
Journal of Managerial Psychology Lixin Chen, Qingxiong Weng, Qinyi Fang June 23, 2026
Training & Development Research Methods Leadership Networks Measurement & Psychometrics
Purpose This study draws upon social comparison theory and conservation of resources theory to investigate the impact of perceived leader-member exchange differentiation (PLMXD) on employee knowledge hiding. Design/methodology/approach Surveying 305 employees from Chinese organizations, we employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine hypotheses. Findings PLMXD was positively related to LMX ambivalence, and LMX ambivalence was positively related to knowledge hiding. Furthermore, the relationship between PLMXD and knowledge hiding was mediated by LMX ambivalence. Social comparison orientation moderated the relationship between PLMXD and LMX ambivalence. Originality/value Our findings not only corroborate with prior research indicating that employees react negatively to PLMXD, but also explore how and under which conditions such a negative relationship is more likely to occur.
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Grateful leaders and attentive followers: How grateful attention transmits the cascade of gratitude expressions to strengthen coworker relationships.
Journal of Applied Psychology Lauren Rachel Locklear, Meghan Kane, Mark G. Ehrhart June 22, 2026
Leadership Networks Training & Development Selection & Assessment Performance
Leader gratitude expressions are widely viewed as a powerful tool to build relationships with and foster the well-being of followers. The present research moves beyond the impact of that gratitude to address whether and how leader gratitude spreads beyond immediate subordinates to influence others throughout the organizational hierarchy. Existing perspectives suggest that leader behaviors may spread via behavioral imitation or emotional contagion, yet gratitude-an appraisal-dependent emotion-likely requires distinct cognitive processes to propagate. Integrating gratitude research with social information processing theory (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978), we propose a novel pathway of gratitude trickle-down effects, grateful attention, defined as the allocation of attention toward gratitude-inducing stimuli in the workplace, including interpersonal and environmental cues. We argue that witnessing leader gratitude expressions shapes followers' attentional deployment, increasing followers' recognition of benefaction events and promoting their own gratitude expressions, which subsequently improves the quality of their relationships with coworkers. Across two preregistered field studies and a preregistered yoked experimental causal chain study, we competitively test grateful attention alongside social learning (leader emulation) and emotional contagion (felt gratitude). Results consistently demonstrate that grateful attention uniquely transmits the cascading effects of leader gratitude expressions beyond traditional behavioral and emotional explanations. These findings advance theory by identifying an information processing function of gratitude and clarify how leader gratitude expressions can catalyze the spread of gratitude throughout organizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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How curiosity mitigates mental health challenges in organizations.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Jessi Mariah Rivin, Russell Cropanzano, H. Phoenix Van Wagoner June 22, 2026
Health & Well-Being Research Methods Performance Individual Differences Job Attitudes
Employee mental health is an urgent concern for contemporary organizations, with anxiety and depression increasingly affecting workplace functioning. Yet managers often struggle to support employees facing mental health challenges. Drawing on affective neuroscience theory, which highlights the emotion systems involved in anxiety and depression, we explore how individual differences in affective dispositions influence emotion regulation at work. Specifically, we examine how curiosity, a momentary activation of the SEEKING system, can mitigate employee mental health challenges. Across two experience sampling methodology studies conducted during and after the pandemic, we explore how state experiences of interest relate to employees' emotional states and workplace functioning. Our investigation considers how trait predispositions interact with situational factors to influence the regulation of anxiety and depression, and how transient activation of curiosity may shape broader work attitudes. By framing curiosity as a biologically grounded, situationally sensitive mechanism, this research extends affective neuroscience theory to organizational contexts and highlights the dynamic interplay between individual differences, momentary emotional experiences, and workplace outcomes. Practically, fostering curiosity through autonomy, novelty, psychological safety, and opportunities for exploration may offer organizations a nonstigmatizing, evidence-based approach to support employee well-being and adaptive performance, complementing traditional interventions for mental health in the workplace. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Expertise evaluation: a dimensional framework for broad-based theory building
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Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Maartje E. Schouten, Aman Kabra, Stephen E. Humphrey June 21, 2026
Performance Training & Development Selection & Assessment Individual Differences Networks
Expertise evaluation – the interpersonal assessment of others’ domain-specific knowledge, skills, and abilities – is a critical mechanism for leveraging knowledge in organizations. Despite its importance, research on expertise evaluation is fragmented across disciplines, plagued by construct proliferation, and hampered by inconsistent terminology, limiting cumulative theory building. To address this challenge, we synthesize operationalizations from 105 articles and propose a three-dimensional framework that captures core assumptions underlying expertise evaluation: Verification Level (the degree to which the interpersonal evaluation is corroborated by a direct assessment of the target’s expertise), Reference Explicitness (the degree to which the frame of reference for the evaluation is made explicit), and Degree of Interdependence (the degree to which the evaluation is seen as a socially constructed process whereby evaluators influence each other’s assessment). This framework provides a common language for scholars, clarifies conceptual tensions, and enables examination of temporal, contextual, and interactive relationships among dimensions. By situating expertise evaluation within this multidimensional space, we advance theory development, improve construct accuracy, and offer practical guidance for designing evaluation systems that enhance the utilization of expertise in organizations.
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Daily creative clashes in organizations: how, when, and for whom daily task conflict shapes employee idea generation
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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Valentina Sommovigo, Francesco Montani, Stevan E. Hobfoll, Guido Alessandri June 21, 2026
Conflict Research Methods Selection & Assessment Job Attitudes Networks
This study examines the extent to which, how, and when task conflict is associated with employees’ day-to-day idea generation. Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory, we hypothesized a nonlinear within-person association between task conflict and idea generation, mediated by daily job crafting and moderated by regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions at work. We tested our hypotheses using a 31-day diary study of 142 employees who completed a baseline questionnaire assessing self-efficacy beliefs and end-of-day surveys measuring task conflict, job crafting, and idea generation. Daily task conflict was nonlinearly associated with short-term idea generation through daily job crafting, contingent on self-efficacy beliefs. Employees with high regulatory emotional self-efficacy were especially likely to engage in job crafting and generate new ideas on days characterized by high (rather than low or moderate) task conflict, reflecting an accelerating increase in these behaviours as conflict intensified. This study identifies job crafting as a behavioural mechanism that helps explain how task conflict is associated with idea generation at the within-person level and clarifies the personal boundary conditions of this relationship. These findings offer theoretical and practical insights into how organizations may support employee idea generation amid day-to-day task conflict.
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Managing Virtual Work: An Integrative Framework for Human Resource Management
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Human Resource Management Tobias Blay, Fabian Jintae Froese, Sumita Raghuram, Bradford S. Bell, Agnes Bäker June 19, 2026
HR Systems & Talent Management Remote Work Artificial Intelligence/Technology Training & Development Teams
ABSTRACT Virtual work has become a defining feature of contemporary organizations, yet Human Resource Management (HRM) scholarship lacks an integrated understanding of how it should be managed. We address this disconnect by shifting the focus from individual and team experiences to the organizational management of virtual work through HRM. We conceptualize virtual work and organize prior research along four dimensions: spatial, temporal, technological, and employment relationship. Building on this, we develop an integrative framework based on two axes, the degree of virtuality and the nature of the employment relationship, from which four forms of virtual work emerge and between which organizations may transition: co‐located, hybrid, fully virtual, and virtual gig work. We delineate four corresponding HRM roles and their implications for managing and transitioning between these arrangements: traditional, integrative, enabling and empowering, and algorithmic HRM. We conclude by outlining future research directions to advance HRM in virtual work, with a focus on emerging technologies, global contexts, and rethinking theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches.
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Line Managers as Conduits of Corporate Standards: Evidence From Human Resource Practices in Fast Food Franchise Chains
Human Resource Management Tashlin Lakhani, Can Ouyang, Hyesook Chung, Rosemary Batt June 19, 2026
HR Systems & Talent Management Motivation Training & Development Performance Individual Differences
ABSTRACT This study integrates organizational theory and strategic human resource management research to examine how corporate standards for managing frontline employees shape human resource (HR) implementation at the unit level. While prior research has recognized the role of line managers, less is known about how HR investments directed at line managers influence their implementation of HR practices. We argue that more extensive HR‐related corporate standards, embedded in chain training and technology systems, lead franchisees to invest in line manager training and compensation. These investments enhance line managers' ability and motivation to implement HR practices for frontline employees in line with corporate standards. We further propose that corporate enforcement mechanisms, in the form of contract terminations, strengthen these relationships. Using a nationally stratified random sample of 908 franchisee‐owned units across 143 U.S. fast food chains, we combine survey data on unit‐level HR practices with independent measures of corporate standards from franchise disclosure documents. Results reveal that corporate standards do not simply flow through to frontline employee HR practices but are instead transmitted through line manager HR investments, with stronger effects under greater enforcement. These findings identify line managers as key conduits through which corporate standards are enacted in unit‐level practices and highlight the importance of aligning standards, managerial investments, and enforcement in decentralized organizations.
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From Founders’ Knowledge to Economic Value Capture in Academic and Employee Start-ups
Organization Science Mahka Moeen June 19, 2026
Organizational Culture Performance Artificial Intelligence/Technology
Economic value capture is crucial for entrepreneurial start-ups as it conditions the commercial viability of the technological opportunities underlying their founding. Start-ups vary in whether they capture value and, if so, whether through markets for product or technology. This study posits that value capture hinges on founders’ knowledge accumulated in their prior employment context, separating founders as academic scientists and former employees of industry firms. Academic founders bring scientific knowledge from universities, and within-industry employee founders carry industry-specific knowledge from their former employer. These differences provide the theoretical basis that the study empirically explores in U.S. medical device start-ups. Academic start-ups tend to capture value in markets for technology, whereas within-industry employee start-ups tend to capture value in markets for product. Further, variations in founders’ history and employment context can bridge scientific and commercial dimensions in knowledge profiles within academic and employee start-ups, shifting the resulting value capture pathway toward pioneering products. Funding: This work was supported by the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.18121 .
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To act or avoid: unpacking the dual pathways of perceived leader perfectionism shaping employee proactivity through distinct error orientations
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Yao Song, Zhen Wang June 19, 2026
Training & Development Leadership Motivation Performance Health & Well-Being
Employee proactive behaviour is critical for organizational adaptation and increasingly expected in today’s workplaces. Yet little is known about how perceived leader perfectionism shapes employees’ willingness to act proactively. Drawing on the error orientation model, we propose that perceived leader perfectionism has dual effects on proactivity through two error orientations: a learning-from-error orientation that promotes initiative and an error strain orientation that inhibits it. We further examine growth mindset as a boundary condition that may strengthen the learning pathway and reduce the strain pathway. Across a scenario-based experiment with 355 employees and a three-wave field study with 741 logistics employees, perceived leader perfectionism was positively associated with both learning-from-error and error strain orientations, which had opposing implications for proactivity. Growth mindset consistently strengthened the positive pathway through learning from errors, whereas its buffering effect on the strain pathway emerged only in the experiment. These findings reveal when perceived leader perfectionism can both motivate and discourage employee proactivity.
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A profile analysis of leader interpersonal emotion management strategies.
Journal of Applied Psychology Fenghao Wang, HU Xiao-fei, Chu‐Ding Ling, Wu Liu June 18, 2026
Research Methods Leadership Motivation Training & Development Networks
Research on interpersonal emotion regulation has illuminated how leaders can use four interpersonal emotion management (IEM) strategies-situation modification, cognitive change, attentional deployment, and modulating the emotional response-to help regulate subordinates' emotions and manage their work outcomes. However, this literature remains theoretically incomplete, because it has largely examined these strategies in isolation, overlooking the extent to which they coexist and interact in shaping subordinates' attributions and behaviors. To address this limitation, we adopt a person-centered approach to examine how leaders combine IEM strategies in distinct dyadic patterns (i.e., profiles) within leader-subordinate relationships. Drawing on the social role framework of interpersonal affect regulation and attribution theory, we further investigate the antecedents and outcomes of these patterns. Across four studies, we identify five stable dyadic IEM patterns-adaptive, moderate, inactive, pragmatic, and moderate-pragmatic-with the first four patterns emerging consistently across all four studies, and all five patterns emerging in three of the studies. We find these patterns are distinguished by dyadic-level leader IEM motives (i.e., coaching, compassion, and instrumentality motives) and are associated with distinct subordinate behavioral responses, such as organizational citizenship behavior and interaction avoidance toward the leader. Given the widely acknowledged prevalence and significance of emotions in the workplace, these findings have vital implications for theory and practice on IEM within organizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Scoring employment interviews with large language models: Evaluation design components, validity investigations, and best practice recommendations.
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Journal of Applied Psychology Kayden Stockdale, Louis Hickman, Siyi Liu June 18, 2026
Measurement & Psychometrics Selection & Assessment Performance Training & Development Diversity & Inclusion
= 144). We then investigated the LLM scores' intrarater reliabilities, test-retest correlations, convergent, discriminant, and criterion evidence of validity, group differences, and measurement bias. We compared this evidence, when possible, to the same evidence for human raters and supervised machine learning models. The results suggest that ensembles of larger, newer LLMs using prompts with detailed construct information hold potential for scoring employment interviews with psychometric properties comparable to or superior to supervised machine learning models and single human raters. We detail the reasons that organizations may want to be cautious in adopting LLMs for scoring high-stakes open-ended assessments, but since organizations have already begun adopting them, we also offer best practice recommendations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Workaholics Anonymous? Proself Attributions of Workaholism Increase Coworker Work Effort and Badmouthing
Journal of Organizational Behavior Jun Gu, Zhuolin She, Quan Li, Anna Carmella Ocampo, Rebecca Mitchell, et al. June 18, 2026
Motivation Performance Job Attitudes Training & Development Research Methods
ABSTRACT Work is inherently social, and employees routinely compare themselves to coworkers to gauge expectations and performance. As a highly visible workplace behavior, workaholism carries interpersonal meaning for those who observe it, yet research has largely overlooked how coworkers are affected when they perceive a colleague as workaholic. Results from three programmatic studies obtained from four samples, including a multiwave and multisource field study, a vignette experiment, and preregistered causal‐chain recall experiments, show that perceived employee workaholism heightens coworkers' individual performance pressure. This effect is particularly pronounced when coworkers attribute the workaholic's behavior to proself motivations (e.g., pursuing financial rewards or promotion opportunities) rather than prosocial motivations (e.g., helping the organization succeed). Elevated performance pressure, in turn, increases engagement in work effort and badmouthing toward the workaholic employee. Collectively, these findings reposition workaholism as a socially consequential workplace behavior, extending prior research by shifting attention from the workaholic to the coworkers who observe and interpret workaholic behaviors.
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Psychological Contracts With Purpose: A Review and Path Forward
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Marjo‐Riitta Diehl, Anna Kevätsalo, jacqueline coyle-shapiro June 18, 2026
Job Attitudes Training & Development Motivation Health & Well-Being Networks
ABSTRACT This review advances the understanding of psychological contracts (PCs) that include third‐party beneficiaries and transcend self‐interested goals, which we term “PCs with purpose.” PC theory has challenged the assumption that social exchange relies solely on balanced rewards and inducements, highlighting that individuals may wish to contribute beyond the traditional give‐and‐take. Consequently, scholarly attention to ideological currency has grown, coinciding with the increasing prominence of purpose in management research and practice. Existing research on PCs in volunteering, the public sector, and nonprofit organizations offers additional insights into contexts where purpose is integral to organizational mission. Yet despite its relevance for employees and organizations, there is little consensus on how purpose should be systematically incorporated into PC literature. This review clarifies the role of purpose in the employee‐employer exchange as captured across the disparate strands of PC research. We develop a comprehensive framework of existing research, identify key challenges, and offer directions for addressing them. In doing so, the review provides new theoretical directions and a rich research agenda for advancing the understanding of PCs with purpose. We argue that foregrounding purpose in PCs will future‐proof the framework's relevance for understanding the employment relationship among employees who strive to make a difference through their work.
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In Tune for Impact: Top Management Team–Employee Congruence in Attributions of Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Socially Responsible Behaviors
Journal of Organizational Behavior Sudong Shang, Ying Lu, Miles M. Yang, Junzhe Zhao June 18, 2026
Social Responsibility Training & Development Measurement & Psychometrics Job Attitudes Teams
ABSTRACT The micro–corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature has called for research that incorporates multiple observers from different organizational levels to provide a comprehensive understanding of how to shape employees' socially responsible behaviors. Drawing on person–organization fit and organizational legitimacy theories, we propose a model in which top management team (TMT)–employee (in)congruence in attributions of substantive CSR shapes employees' socially responsible behaviors through organizational identification. We tested our model through multiple complementary studies that employed diverse methodologies. Study 1 employed a 2‐year longitudinal design and analyzed data from 66 TMTs and 198 employees. Studies 2A and 2B validated the model through one experimental vignette study ( n = 242) and one critical incident study ( n = 187). Our results highlight that TMT–employee congruence at high levels of attributions of substantive CSR enhances organizational identification and subsequently facilitates employees' socially responsible behaviors; however, this high‐level congruence was not superior to the condition in which employees attributed higher substantive CSR than TMTs. Our research contributes to the micro‐CSR and broader organizational behavior literatures by providing a nuanced approach to investigating employees' CSR engagement.
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Leveraging the Reputation of Being Socially Responsible: Evidence from Firms’ Online Job Postings
Journal of Management Qiang Li, Bingyi Qin, Wenfeng Wang, Zheng Wang June 18, 2026
Selection & Assessment Training & Development Research Methods Performance Health & Well-Being
While prior research has examined individuals’ preference to work for socially responsible employers, little is known about how firms actively leverage their CSR reputation in recruiting talent. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), we conceptualize CSR reputation as a strategic resource that provides firms with a competitive edge in the labor market. To leverage this strategic resource, firms set higher skill requirements and advertise their CSR activities in job postings, which allows them to more effectively target and recruit talent. Using a large sample of online job posting data, we first provide empirical evidence confirming that CSR reputation is positively associated with higher skill requirements in terms of education, experience, and social and cognitive skills, as well as greater promotion of CSR activities in job postings. Using employee resume data, we further show that these two recruitment strategies mediate the positive effect of CSR reputation on actual recruitment outcomes, measured by the actual skills of new hires and job position filling rates. Overall, our findings support the notion that firms can rely on their reputation of being socially responsible as a valuable resource for recruiting high-quality human capital.
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Dual‐Earner Couples’ Job Characteristic Discrepancies: Implications for Within‐Dyad Relative Work Adjustment During COVID‐19
Personnel Psychology Kristen M. Shockley, Malissa A. Clark, Hope Dodd, Eden B. King, Beth E Buchanan June 17, 2026
Networks Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance Motivation
ABSTRACT Many married couples are in a dual‐earner situation, where both partners are managing their own jobs and careers. In these families, there are likely to be times when a partner makes concessions pertaining to their own work in order to achieve a shared family objective. This was particularly true during the early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic when dual‐earner couples with young children suddenly found themselves managing work demands without childcare. For most couples, this required some type of work adjustment—work‐related sacrifices that hinder goal progress—to handle family responsibilities. Using a sample of 187 dual‐earner couples with young children, the present study takes a dyadic approach by considering each spouse's job characteristics as predictors of perceived relative work adjustments within the couple, and by examining the relationship between relative work adjustments and four indicators of couples’ well‐being. We used dyadic polynomial regression and response‐surface analyses to test whether differences between spouses in schedule flexibility and job role indispensability predicted their relative work adjustment, beyond the effects of each spouse's flexibility and indispensability considered separately. Findings revealed that relative work adjustments depended on consideration of one's own schedule flexibility in relation to the schedule flexibility of their spouse, such that the person with greater flexibility was perceived to have adjusted relatively more. Job role indispensability showed a similar trend, but in the opposite direction, such that spouses with greater indispensability adjusted relatively less. Moreover, the negative effects of relative work adjustment on relationship outcomes were generally stronger for women than for men.
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Why technology implementation fails: from adoption to dynamic technology integration
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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Annika Mertens, Madison Kho, Francesco De Toni, Sharon K. Parker June 16, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Motivation Training & Development Job Attitudes Selection & Assessment
Digital technologies are increasingly introduced at work to improve efficiency and reduce costs, yet failure to integrate them into workflows remains common. This paper analyses a case study of a failed technology integration in a healthcare setting. Drawing on technology acceptance models, socio-technical systems perspectives, and socio-material views, we develop the Dynamic Model of Technology Integration that emphasizes the importance of accounting for workflow disruption, interdependencies, and the active user role. Using a mixed-methods approach, we collected data from 67 clinicians at a public hospital via tool analytics, surveys administered over four timepoints, and 29 interviews. Although perceived ease of use and usefulness predicted initial technology use, adoption declined over time. Interviews revealed that successful integration requires individuals to engage in affordance crafting in which they invest effort to overcome contextual constraints and unlock the potential action opportunities of a technology to embed that technology into their work practices and to align it with their preferences and motives at work. Integration failed when the individual effort investment required to engage in such crafting exceeded a threshold of perceived short-term benefits. This threshold was exacerbated by a high workload environment with complex interdependencies across tasks, technologies, and co-workers.
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A choice architecture intervention to increase diversity: Diverse defaults can counteract hiring discrimination.
Journal of Applied Psychology Zhiyu Feng, Fangzhou Liu, Priscilla Lok‐chee Shum, Rui Ling Lee, D Wang, et al. June 15, 2026
Diversity & Inclusion Selection & Assessment Organizational Change Research Methods Training & Development
Most interventions aimed at reducing hiring discrimination focus on eliminating people's biases through diversity training, yet such approaches have achieved limited success. Drawing on social information processing theory, we propose a novel choice architecture intervention, diverse defaults, which involves preselecting a demographically diverse set of candidates. We theorize that diverse defaults function as social information, signaling organizational expectations for diversity in the hiring context. Four experiments reported in the main text and six in the supplement found that decision makers chose more women and ethnic minority candidates when a diverse set of candidates was preselected by default than when no candidates were preselected. A mini meta-analysis across all studies showed that this effect held even when decision makers did not retain the default options. That is, even if decision makers chose a different set of options than those preselected, they still chose more diverse candidates than in the control condition, indicating that the diverse default effect operates through perceptions of normative expectations rather than simple inertia (i.e., simply choosing the default options without making any adjustments). Mediation analyses confirmed that diverse defaults increased hiring diversity through perceived organizational diversity expectation. The effect of perceived organizational diversity expectation on hiring diversity was stronger among decision makers with stronger stereotypes, indicating that these perceptions are particularly influential when they are inconsistent with decision makers' preexisting biases. Overall, this research identifies a choice architecture intervention that can promote diversity in hiring without explicitly mentioning diversity, discrimination, gender, race, or related concepts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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Crises Unbound: Institutions, Occupational Groups, and the Construction of Omnicrises
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Journal of Management Gerardo Patriotta, Maxim Voronov June 15, 2026
Teams Networks Training & Development
Omnicrises are systemic disruptions that transcend organizational boundaries, rapidly escalating across institutional domains and destabilizing the jurisdictional order through which social life is coordinated. Unlike conventional crises that are confined to specific organizations or industries, an omnicrisis triggers a state of jurisdictional fracturing, creating vacuums of authority that undermine communities’ sense of stability and continuity. We argue that omnicrises occur when systemic disruptions misalign established connections between occupational mandates, settled jurisdictions, and recognized expertise, compelling occupational groups to avow, delegate, or realign authority in response to unfolding threats. Resolution emerges through processes of institutional repair that stabilize a coherent jurisdictional settlement and enable the construction of a “new normal.” By incorporating insights from institutional theory and the sociology of occupations, we advance understanding of crisis governance, expertise under systemic threat, and the reconstruction of institutional order in an era of pervasive uncertainty.
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“All Hands on Deck” or “Hands off the Tiller”? Linking Understaffing and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors
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Journal of Management Winny Shen, Shani Pindek, Jiawei Zheng, Jie Zhong, James W. Beck June 15, 2026
Job Attitudes Networks HR Systems & Talent Management Research Methods Performance
In this paper, we seek to clarify competing perspectives on the relationship between workplace staffing conditions and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). On one hand, workers may engage in more OCBs in the face of understaffing, reflecting a greater inclination to help during their organizations’ time of need. On the other hand, workers may engage in fewer OCBs due to understaffing, reflecting a withdrawal of effort under stressful circumstances to protect and conserve resources. Integrating social exchange principles with research on human resource (HR) attributions, we examine these two possibilities and their underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions across three multi-wave survey studies. We find some support for both perspectives. That is, manpower understaffing can prompt OCBs via greater felt challenge, whereas expertise understaffing can subvert OCBs via lower felt obligation to the organization but can also promote OCBs via greater felt obligation to one’s coworkers. Additionally, expertise understaffing can either enhance or diminish feelings of challenge, leading to downstream effects on OCBs, depending upon circumstances. Finally, relations between understaffing and proposed mediators varied based on perceived chronicity of staffing conditions and attributions regarding the degree to which staffing conditions were due to factors external to the organization (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic), respectively. Implications of our results for theory and practice are discussed.
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From burden to thriving: Challenge appraisals as a buffer between family eldercare burden and employee thriving at work.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Yisheng Peng, Yujie Zhan, Wenqin Zhang June 15, 2026
Networks Performance Research Methods
Providing care for older family members (e.g., parents or relatives) and fulfilling one's work responsibilities, known as family eldercare, is becoming increasingly common due to the growing population of older adults in many societies. A burgeoning literature has begun investigating the negative spillover effects of eldercare burden on employees' experiences and performance at work. In particular, scholars have called for more attention to identifying effective strategies for coping with eldercare burden and mitigating its negative impact. The present research examined whether challenge appraisals of eldercare could mitigate the effect of eldercare burden on employees' positive affect, which, in turn, was related to their sense of thriving at work. In two studies-an experiment and a 2-week experience sampling study-we found that challenge appraisals weakened the relationship between eldercare burden and employees' positive affect. Employees' challenge appraisals also weakened the indirect relationship between eldercare burden and thriving at work through positive affect. This research demonstrates that employees' eldercare burden negatively spills over into the work domain. However, challenge appraisals of eldercare can buffer this spillover process. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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The impact of servant leadership on employee job insecurity and outcomes: the moderating role of perceived team competition
Journal of Managerial Psychology Yangxin Wang, Zhen Wang, Yuhui Li June 15, 2026
Research Methods Leadership Teams Job Attitudes Health & Well-Being
Purpose Drawing on conservation of resources theory and contingency theories of leadership, this study investigates how servant leadership reduces employee job insecurity and, in turn, relates to lower emotional exhaustion and higher organizational commitment. We also examined the moderating effect of perceived team competition. Design/methodology/approach A three-wave survey of 203 employees was conducted at a photoelectric technology company in China. We employed path analysis combined with a bootstrapped resampling method to test our hypotheses. Findings Servant leadership reduces employee job insecurity, which in turn leads to lower emotional exhaustion and higher organizational commitment. Perceived team competition weakens the relationship between servant leadership and job insecurity, as well as the indirect relationships between servant leadership and emotional exhaustion and organizational commitment via job insecurity. Practical implications Servant leaders can help reduce employee job insecurity, and a less competitive work environment is an important contextual condition that enables this effect. Originality/value Prior research has largely overlooked the extent to which employees’ job insecurity is influenced by their servant leadership experience. This study focuses on how employee job insecurity is reduced by servant leadership and how this beneficial effect is counteracted by perceived team competition. Meanwhile, we identify reduced job insecurity as a new mechanism that may mediate the effect of servant leadership on emotional exhaustion and organizational commitment.
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What It Takes to Foster Well‐Being in Organizations: A Comment to König et al.
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International Journal of Selection and Assessment Sabine Sonnentag, Doris Fay June 15, 2026
Selection & Assessment Performance Training & Development Individual Differences Measurement & Psychometrics
ABSTRACT In this comment, we discuss the article by König et al. (”Why Personnel Selection Should Target Job Performance AND Well‐Being”) and describe our view on employee well‐being in the context of personnel selection. We appreciate several of König et al.'s suggestions: they highlight how incorporating measures into the selection process that enhance person‐job or person‐organization fit, or may stimulate self‐selection, could ultimately enhance employee well‐being. We argue, however, that their approach of including personal dispositions as predictors of experienced well‐being can be problematic for several reasons. We suggest that organizations that want to enhance employee well‐being through a selection approach should adopt a different strategy: Organizations could orient their selection procedure towards personal dispositions that protect the well‐being of other members within the organization.
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Does better sleep quality always predict better work performance? A daily examination of sleep quality and task proactivity
Work & Stress Alexandra A. Henderson, Larissa K. Barber, Xinyu Hu June 14, 2026
Performance Artificial Intelligence/Technology Motivation Networks Organizational Change
We argue that better sleep quality might not always predict better work performance, especially when considering both activated affective pathways (positive and negative) and the level of analysis (daily within-person changes versus between-person differences). We examined the link between sleep quality and task proactivity via activated positive and negative affect for five consecutive working days (N = 149). On days with better sleep quality, participants reported higher task proactivity via higher activated positive affect; however, they also reported lower task proactivity via lower activated negative affect. Thus, at the within-person level, daily sleep quality had a null relationship with daily task proactivity when considering both activated affective pathways. However, at the between-person level, general sleep quality had a positive overall relationship with general task proactivity through both higher activated positive affect and lower activated negative affect. In summary, we find that an especially good or bad night’s sleep does not predict task proactivity the following day; however, general levels of sleep quality are positively related to general task proactivity. Theoretically, we suggest that the activated negative affect resulting from poor sleep can be conceptualised as a motivational resource at the daily within-person level, but a resource drain at the between-person level.
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Building a Contextually Agile Workforce
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Human Resource Management Paula Caligiuri June 14, 2026
Selection & Assessment Performance Training & Development HR Systems & Talent Management Individual Differences
ABSTRACT Human resource management (HRM) theory has long recognized that context shapes employee behavior and performance. Less developed is the employee competency through which individuals determine what a given context requires and adjust their behavior accordingly. This article develops contextual agility as a competency needed when expectations, norms, cues, or relationships are unfamiliar, unstable, conflicting, or under‐specified. Under these conditions, routine responses are often insufficient; employees must adapt, recombine, or construct responses that fit the context. I argue that contextual agility operates through three interrelated processes: attentional openness, regulatory flexibility, and response enactment. At the individual level, these processes are supported by six durable skills: curiosity, humility, resilience, tolerance of ambiguity, perspective‐taking, and relationship‐building. The article contributes to HRM theory by specifying contextual agility as a competency that links contextual demands to appropriate behavioral responses, and by explaining how HR systems can select, develop, reinforce, and scale this competency to build a contextually agile workforce.
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I Can't Get no Satisfaction! Examining the Impact of Remote Work Reduction on Employee Job Satisfaction
Human Resource Management Gustavo M. Tavares, Tatiana Iwai, Jefferson de Oliveira Moura June 14, 2026
Job Attitudes Remote Work Research Methods Selection & Assessment Leadership
ABSTRACT The COVID‐19 pandemic catalyzed a global shift toward working from home (WFH), potentially reshaping workplace norms and employee expectations. As organizations began scaling back previously available WFH arrangements in the post‐pandemic period, questions emerged about how such changes affect employee satisfaction. Drawing on psychological contract theory, this study examines how reductions in WFH availability influence employee job satisfaction and tests psychological contract violation as the key causal mechanism underlying this relationship. Using two complementary studies, we provide evidence that scaling back WFH availability leads to declines in employee job satisfaction after the pandemic. The first study leverages longitudinal organizational data from U.S. federal agencies spanning 2016 to 2023 and a quasi‐experimental research design to examine how sharper reductions in WFH availability affect employee job satisfaction. The second study uses a scenario‐based experimental design to demonstrate that reductions in WFH availability increase perceptions of psychological contract violation, which in turn reduce job satisfaction. Together, these findings highlight that post‐pandemic reductions in previously available flexibility are not merely logistical adjustments, but meaningful relational changes with important implications for employee attitudes.
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Navigating Diversification: The CEO’s Human Capital Influence on Firm’s Diversification Strategy and Performance
Group & Organization Management Melis Yucel, Irene Campos-García, María Sacristán–Navarro June 14, 2026
Performance Research Methods Networks Conflict
Diversification strategies remain a focal point in strategic management, yet conflicting findings persist regarding the relationship between diversification and performance. This paper intends to disentangle these conflicting findings by examining the role of CEO’s human capital in shaping firm strategy and performance within the context of related and unrelated diversification. Drawing on matching theory and the upper echelons literature, performance implications of diversification types depend on the alignment between CEO’s human capital and chosen strategy. Empirical analysis, based on Fortune 500 CEO appointments between 2000-2020, uses OLS regressions with random effects and Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) regressions. The findings reveal that outsider CEOs are negatively associated with related diversification, career variety is negatively associated with related and positively with unrelated diversification, and the fit between outsider status and diversification strategy determines firm performance. The findings contribute to the ongoing discourse on diversification, CEO characteristics, and their intricate interplay in influencing organizational outcomes.
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The Politicization of Wage Setting
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Administrative Science Quarterly Thomas Lyttelton, Nathan Wilmers June 13, 2026
HR Systems & Talent Management Selection & Assessment Job Attitudes Research Methods
Political realignment in America has reshuffled party affiliations across occupational lines. Increasingly the party of unions and minimum wages is also the party of managers and professionals. In this article, we investigate whether this realignment among the actors setting wages within firms has politicized wage setting. We first show that Democrat managers pay more to hourly workers, even comparing across firms within metro-occupation-industry-year local labor markets. This premium is confined to senior managers and human resources and compensation managers; a placebo test shows that operations managers' political affiliation is uncorrelated with wage levels. We then show, consistent with coalitional behavior, that the Democrat wage premium is larger for Democrat-leaning service jobs than for increasingly Republican blue-collar workers, and larger for women than for men. Democrat managers raise pay more around salient minimum wage increases and become relatively more likely to pay $15 wages specifically. In an experiment in which manager-employee partisan match is randomly assigned, managers are 10 percentage points more likely to assign co-partisans a higher wage. Finally, we show that the Democrat wage premium has grown in recent years, and that this accounts for 12% of extra wage increases for low-wage workers during this period. Taken together, these results suggest a politicization of wage-setting, wherein managers' liberal commitments benefit frontline workers in their political coalition.
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An Interdisciplinary Review of the Gaslighting Literature and Future Research Agenda
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Paula A. Kincaid, Samantha C. O. Stalion June 12, 2026
Training & Development Measurement & Psychometrics Research Methods
ABSTRACT Gaslighting is increasingly discussed in organizational contexts, yet its meaning, boundaries, and process remain unclear within management and organizational scholarship. Although research on gaslighting has expanded across multiple disciplines, existing work is conceptually fragmented and difficult to integrate, limiting cumulative theory development and empirical progress. In this review, we synthesize 56 years of gaslighting research (1969‐2025; 266 articles) to clarify how gaslighting has been defined, studied, and applied, with particular attention paid to its relevance for work and organizational settings. We identify four recurring ways gaslighting has been conceptualized and show how variation across these approaches has contributed to inconsistent definitions, measurement dispersion, and limited theorizing. Building on this synthesis, we advance a management‐oriented definition of gaslighting and introduce an organizing framework that depicts gaslighting as a process unfolding over time, linking antecedent conditions to interactional dynamics and downstream individual and organizational consequences. Finally, we review methodological patterns in the literature and outline a focused agenda for future research aimed at strengthening conceptual clarity, theory development, and empirical rigor in the study of gaslighting in organizations.
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The Social Attribution of Innovation: Uncovering the Heads Behind the Guillotine
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Academy of Management Journal Paolo Aversa, Paul Gouvard, Maria A. Makarova June 12, 2026
Training & Development Performance Job Attitudes Artificial Intelligence/Technology Research Methods
Popular narratives often attribute innovations to a few “heroic” figures. Although scholarship has challenged this myth, it typically treats attribution as an issue of credit allocation, separating innovation production from innovator recognition. As a result, we lack an integrated account of how innovations and innovators become progressively linked through social processes of attribution. We address this gap through a micro-historical study of the guillotine, a beheading machine enduringly attributed to—and named after—Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a humanist, physician, and politician who did not, in fact, invent it. Analyzing debates on equality in penal reform during the French Revolution (1788–1792), we develop a process model of attribution grounded in the co-construction of innovations and innovators. We theorize how audiences’ evaluations of a contributor’s engagement with a novel solution escalate into an evaluation–attribution spiral that crystallizes the innovator–innovation link. Our model identifies the mapping of contributors’ engagement onto value-laden problem dimensions as a key mechanism, and shows why, once crystallized, attribution persists even as the innovation’s meaning shifts—transferring credit or blame to the attributed actor regardless of material involvement. In doing so, we advance research on innovation production, innovator recognition, and the social construction of technology.
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ChatGPT, a Hype That Teaches: Generative AI and the Collective Accumulation of Technology Literacy on Social Media
Academy of Management Journal Hassan Md. Hamadi, Anna BrattstrĂśm June 12, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Training & Development Research Methods Selection & Assessment Performance
The 2022 launch of ChatGPT triggered a wave of social media discussion about generative AI. Drawing on 215,279 posts from five months after this launch, we extend prior accounts of hype as a vehicle for strategic resource mobilization to develop a theory of hype as collective sensemaking and knowledge creation. Existing models rest on a fixed relational architecture: knowledgeable actors leverage information asymmetries to project visions, directing expectations top down. ChatGPT collapsed this architecture by making generative AI accessible, democratizing technology evaluation; meanwhile, social media emerged as the arena where relational publics could form, driving vision formation and contestation around generative AI from the bottom up, reshaping how a nascent technology acquired meaning. Combining grounded theory with computational text analysis, we develop a process model on the role of relational publics in hypes. We explain how collective knowledge accumulates through traceable conceptual prototyping, testing a technology’s capability and proposing meaning simultaneously, and how, when this knowledge crosses a technology literacy threshold, hype transitions from an expanding to a containing phase. The model advances our understanding of how novel technologies diffuse when crowds simultaneously co-construct visionary imaginaries and practical knowledge, and of the role social media plays in this process.
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The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI and Teamwork
Organization Science Fabrizio Dell’Acqua, Charles Ayoubi, Hila Lifshitz‐Assaf, Raffaella Sadun, Ethan Mollick, et al. June 12, 2026
Teams Performance Artificial Intelligence/Technology Training & Development Motivation
We examine how artificial intelligence (AI) impacts three core pillars of collaboration—performance enhancement, expertise integration, and social engagement—through a preregistered field experiment with 791 professionals at Procter & Gamble, a global consumer packaged goods company. Working on real product innovation challenges, professionals were randomly assigned to work either with or without AI, and either individually or with another professional in new product development teams. Our findings show that (1) AI significantly enhances performance: individuals with AI matched the performance of teams without AI, suggesting that AI can effectively replicate certain benefits of human collaboration. Moreover, (2) AI helps bridge functional silos: without AI, research and development professionals tended to suggest more technical solutions, whereas commercial professionals leaned toward commercially oriented proposals. Professionals using AI produced more balanced solutions, regardless of their professional background. (3) AI’s language-based interface prompted more positive self-reported emotional responses among participants, suggesting it can fulfill part of the social and motivational role traditionally offered by human teammates. Finally, decomposing the innovation process suggests that AI primarily enhances the quality of generated ideas, shifting the distribution of creative output upward, whereas human judgment retains value in evaluative selection. This finding highlights the multiple and complementary roles that human and AI partners can play in new product development tasks and creative problem solving. More generally, our results suggest that AI adoption in knowledge work affects not only performance but also how expertise and sociality appear within teams, offering insights into the impact of generative AI on collaborative work within organizations. Funding: Funding for this research was provided in part by Harvard Business School. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2025.20702 .
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Transformational leadership in context: A meta-analysis of 40 years of research.
Journal of Applied Psychology Dustin Maneethai, Robert Eisenberger, Thomas Rockstuhl, Dongyuan Wu, Blaine A. Lewis June 11, 2026
Leadership Research Methods Organizational Change Selection & Assessment Performance
= 200,732), we meta-analytically assess whether TFL's foundational assumptions of generalizability hold or whether its use and effectiveness depend on broader contextual features. Results show that while TFL continues to positively predict attitudinal (e.g., commitment, trust) and performance (e.g., task, creative) outcomes, significant contextual differences exist. Specifically, TFL levels and effects vary by occupational (i.e., leader position and job type), cultural, and temporal contexts, with mixed support for compensation versus congruence perspectives. Notably, moderator effects vary across outcome domains, with occupational and cultural moderators exerting stronger effects on attitudinal outcomes than on performance outcomes. These patterns suggest that the mechanisms underlying TFL effects differ across outcome domains and challenge the assumption that transformational leaders universally motivate followers to go beyond expectations. These findings extend TFL theory by clarifying its boundary conditions and highlighting the importance of integrating omnibus contextual features into TFL models. Practically, our study informs evidence-based leadership development by underscoring that transformational approaches are not universally applicable and require contextual tailoring to maximize their effectiveness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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How Does Leader Self‐Sacrifice Lead to Subordinate Self‐Sacrifice? A Conformity Perspective
Journal of Organizational Behavior Feifan Yang, Mengxi Yang, Yufei Liu, Alexander Newman, B Wang June 11, 2026
Leadership Performance Networks Job Design HR Systems & Talent Management
ABSTRACT Prior studies have typically viewed self‐sacrificing managers as “good leaders” who inspire their employees through such positive mechanisms as fostering identification with the leader and cultivating high‐quality leader–follower relationships that benefit both parties. Based on theories of conformity, we challenge the prevailing supportive view by arguing that leader self‐sacrifice (LSS) can increase subordinate self‐sacrifice through a pressure‐based mechanism. Specifically, using data from one experiment and two 3‐wave field studies, we found that LSS was positively related to subordinate self‐sacrificial pressure, which in turn prompted subordinate self‐sacrifice. Furthermore, we established that leader autonomy support mitigated these effects: When leaders provided greater autonomy support, their employees experienced lower levels of self‐sacrificial pressure induced by LSS. These findings reveal a previously overlooked, pressure‐driven mechanism through which LSS influences followers, and thus, even well‐intentioned leader behaviors can impose hidden psychological demands on subordinates.
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Emotional Ambivalence Contextualized: The Antecedents and Consequences of Daily Affective Profiles During Pregnancy
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Journal of Organizational Behavior David F. Arena, Jinfeng P. Chen, Allison S. Gabriel, Kristen P. Jones, Devalina Nag June 11, 2026
Performance Research Methods Job Design HR Systems & Talent Management
ABSTRACT Research has increasingly highlighted the prevalence of emotionally ambivalent experiences for employees at work, with several self‐regulatory benefits emerging. Yet we do not have a full understanding of which work‐related contexts yield generative or maladaptive consequences of emotional ambivalence. Drawing on theories of emotional ambivalence and self‐regulation at work, we explore the nature, antecedents, and consequences of profiles of daily affective experiences among pregnant employees—consisting of anxiety, anger, fatigue, vigor, and pride. Across two daily experience sampling studies capturing 279 pregnant employees across 2408 days of data, we find four profiles of daily affective experiences, with women experiencing more ambivalent (i.e., strongly mixed ) profiles incurring the most hindered outcomes, challenging previous findings on the self‐regulatory benefits of emotional ambivalence within organizational research. In contrast, women in more positive profiles (i.e., positives ) reaped the greatest benefits, suggesting that positive affective experiences are beneficial only when they are conjointly felt with lower negative affective states—a more univalent experience rather than an ambivalent one. Combined, our research extends the emotional ambivalence literature by showing that in liminal contexts, such as working during pregnancy, where discretion and autonomy may be limited, emotional ambivalence can contribute to adverse performance and well‐being outcomes.
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Putting AI into career coaching: The effectiveness of a career coaching intervention conducted by a chatbot
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Journal of Vocational Behavior Katharina Ebner, Annabelle Hofer, Roman Souček, Daniel Spurk June 11, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Training & Development Performance Organizational Change Motivation
Advancements in technology have introduced chatbots as a promising tool in the coaching context. While predominantly studied in clinical settings, they also show promise in supporting career concerns. However, whether chatbot career coaching can enhance clients' career adaptation process as conceptualized in Career Construction Theory (CCT), remains a fundamental and unanswered question. Grounded in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy principles, a career coaching script was developed and implemented as a chatbot using respective technology. Within a randomized waitlist control group design ( N = 82), residualized change-regression analyses demonstrated the effectiveness of the chatbot career coaching in reducing negative affect over a three-week period compared to a control group. Moreover, lower negative affect after the chatbot career coaching intervention was significantly associated with greater career goal clarity. The results provide initial, theory-informed evidence of the effectiveness of career coaching chatbots and address the urgent need to evaluate the benefits of this technology for career-related interventions.
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Trauma at Work: Reframing Experiences to Sustain Engagement
Academy of Management Journal Madeleine Rauch, Shaz Ansari June 11, 2026
Job Attitudes Social Responsibility Selection & Assessment Individual Differences Organizational Change
Experiencing trauma in extreme contexts (e.g., areas affected by war, famine, or disease) can undermine professionals’ ability to cope, and remain engaged, with work. Prior research has highlighted coping strategies, such as detachment from trauma. However, less attention has been given to how professionals cope in demoralizing contexts, where trauma is persistent, detachment is difficult, and hope for impact erodes. Drawing on 73 diaries, 146 interviews, field observations, and archival data from Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), we show how professionals cope by temporally reframing their experiences—anchoring in the past or future to reinterpret their experience, and reorienting their agency to sustain engagement in the present. Building on construal-level theory, we identify three reframing pathways that enable professionals to remain engaged over time. Such temporal reframing influences not only how professionals cope but also whether they return to fieldwork or redirect purpose to broader systemic change and policymaking. We contribute to the literatures on trauma and coping by theorizing temporal reframing as a cognitive-emotional coping approach that reorients disoriented agency and explains divergent pathways of sustained engagement or redirected purpose.
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When Do Virtual Teams Benefit from Digital Disclosure? The Role of Power and Status Hierarchies
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Group & Organization Management Wen Feng, Songbo Liu, Qiongjing Hu, Yuxin Lang June 11, 2026
Teams Artificial Intelligence/Technology HR Systems & Talent Management Performance Research Methods
Digital collaboration tools (DCTs), such as Microsoft Teams and DingTalk, are essential in the functioning of virtual teams. However, existing research on how these technologies influence coordination among virtual team members remains underexplored. This study investigates how DCT-enabled disclosure awareness—the extent to which virtual team members are aware of each other’s personal information via DCTs—influences team functioning. Drawing on adaptive structuration theory, we argue that DCT-enabled disclosure awareness positively affects team coordination and, subsequently, team performance. In addition, we propose that power and status hierarchies moderate this relationship, such that the positive impact of DCT-enabled disclosure awareness is stronger when power hierarchy is low or status hierarchy is high. Our hypotheses are supported by multi-source, multi-wave field survey data from 130 virtual teams. These findings provide new insights into virtual team management in the era of organizational digitalization, specifically highlighting how virtual teams can leverage digital technologies to improve performance.
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Support at Work, Capitalization at Home: The Interpersonal Effects of Family‐Supportive Supervisor Behaviors
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Yuhui Jiang, Yan Pan, Yasin RofcanÄąn, Yufan Shang, Mireia Las Heras, et al. June 10, 2026
Performance Leadership Job Attitudes Networks Research Methods
ABSTRACT Family‐supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSBs) have been widely recognized for helping employees navigate work–family demands. Yet, it remains unclear whether the benefits of FSSB extend beyond the workplace to enrich supervisors themselves and their partners at home. Drawing on work–family enrichment theory and family systems theory, we propose a spillover–crossover framework to examine how engaging in FSSB enhances supervisors' family role performance and, in turn, positively associates with their partners' family experiences. Using a weekly experience sampling method with data from dual‐earner couples, we find that FSSB is positively related to supervisors' family role performance via work–family interpersonal capitalization. This enhanced family role performance subsequently crosses over to improve partners' family role performance. Contrary to expectations, the relationship between FSSB and interpersonal capitalization is stronger when family harmony is low, suggesting a compensatory effect. By shifting the lens beyond employees, our study highlights the broader relational reach of FSSB and offers new insights into its cascading impact across work and family domains.
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To Compete From Within: The Competitive Dynamics of Resource Bundling
Journal of Management Reha Karadag, Danny Miller, Ming-Jer Chen June 10, 2026
Performance Training & Development Networks Research Methods Leadership
The resource-based and competitive dynamics perspectives emphasize market activity in defining competition: Rivals compete in product and factor markets for customers and scarce resources. To address market opportunities, however, resources must be bundled into capabilities. Bundling represents the link between resources and value creation. Despite the competitive implications of resource bundling, the current literature implicitly assumes that firms take bundling actions in isolation, which does not reflect the phenomena in most industries, where rivals observe, react to, and learn from each other’s bundling, potentially resulting in escalation. To address this gap, we explore the competitive drivers of bundling, which differs from market-oriented activities in its internal nature and how it escalates within and across markets. We posit that simultaneous overlap in factor and product markets can enhance the visibility of bundling activity, foster resource similarity, and create performance pressure among rivals, leading to a market-level “race to bundle” and differentiation in bundling. We also analyze the moderating roles of the focal firm’s resource endowments relative to its rivals and the extent to which it overlaps with these rivals across factor markets. Based on over a million firm-month observations of 5,415 upstream oil and gas operators, we find that rivals’ bundling intensity is positively related to subsequent focal firm bundling intensity and nonconformity. These relationships are moderated by the firm’s relative resource endowments and multi-factor market overlap. This important complementary aspect of competition can enhance both the resource-based view and competitive dynamics research.
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Organizational Climate Shapes Employee Behavior Through Social Norms
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Journal of Business and Psychology Malte Roswag, Jan A. Häusser, Philipp Hubert, Sascha Etgen, Andreas Mojzisch June 09, 2026
Organizational Culture Training & Development Research Methods Social Responsibility Teams
Abstract Organizational climate is widely acknowledged as a key construct for examining how organizations shape employee behavior. However, a comprehensive theoretical understanding of the mechanisms and boundary conditions of why and when organizational climate exerts its effects is still lacking. In our research, we conceptualize the organization as a social context and draw on theories of social influence to develop a theoretical framework of how organizational climate affects employee behavior. Specifically, we propose that the effects of organizational climate are driven by social norms and are amplified by organizational identification. We conducted three preregistered field studies (total N = 1,983) to test our theoretical model in the domains of safety behavior related to COVID-19 prevention and pro-environmental behavior. Across studies and levels of analysis (unit- and employee-level), we consistently found that the link between organizational climate and employee behavior was mediated by social norms. In exploratory analyses on the unit-level, we further found that this indirect effect is moderated (stage-2 moderation) by the average level of team identification, with stronger effects emerging in teams with stronger collective identification. Taken together, our findings suggest that organizational climate shapes employee behavior in part through social norms.
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Worship me at the office altar: Why narcissistic leaders resist remote work
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Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Marissa S. Shandell, Courtney E. Elliott, Adam M. Grant June 09, 2026
Remote Work Leadership Motivation Individual Differences Research Methods
Leaders have displayed diverging reactions to remote work, with some supporting it and others resisting it. Surprisingly little research has examined the personality roots of leader opposition to virtual work. Integrating the extended agency model of narcissism with media richness theory, we hypothesize that narcissistic leaders resist remote work because it threatens their motivations for power and status. In Study 1, an archival analysis of 259 Fortune 500 CEOs, unobtrusive measures of narcissism via photo size, signature size, and relative compensation predicted greater resistance to remote work in public statements early in the COVID-19 pandemic. This relationship was partially explained by exploratory proxies for narcissistic leaders’ power and status motivations, contingent on their industry not depending on frontline workers. Study 2, a preregistered three-wave survey with 359 leaders, constructively replicated and extended these results. Leader narcissism predicted resistance to remote work, mediated by power and status motivations—even after controlling for trust, the Big Five, and the remaining Dark Triad traits. In Study 3, a preregistered experiment with 546 leaders, manipulating state narcissism evoked resistance to remote work via power but not status motivation. Our findings extend knowledge about remote work and narcissistic leadership.
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Until Work From Home Do Us Apart? Couples' Segmentation Preferences and Relationship Dissolution in the Era of Remote Work
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Alejandro Hermida Carrillo, Felix BĂślingen, Russell A. Matthews, Ingo Weller June 09, 2026
Remote Work Networks Conflict HR Systems & Talent Management Research Methods
ABSTRACT Work from home (WFH) is recognized as carrying both risks and benefits for individuals. However, its impact on romantic couples remains poorly understood. Drawing on boundary theory and family systems theory, we propose that WFH can render certain couples vulnerable to separation and trace the process through which this occurs. Specifically, when romantic partners hold incongruent preferences for segmenting work and home, or when both have a high preference for segmentation, WFH employees might experience heightened work‐to‐home conflict. This conflict drains resources needed for intimacy, fostering mutual loneliness and, ultimately, relationship dissolution deliberations. Across two longitudinal studies of dual‐earner couples in Germany ( n = 170, n = 1561), we found nuanced support for this model. Dyadic response surface analyses showed that incongruent segmentation preferences affected the work‐to‐home conflict of employees in divergent ways—exacerbating it for some, mitigating it for others. As expected, a joint preference for segmentation was consistently associated with heightened work‐to‐home conflict in WFH employees. Work‐to‐home conflict was linked to loneliness in both partners, which explained dissolution deliberations. Overall, our research highlights that WFH is a work arrangement that has couple‐level consequences—beneficial for some, but a risk factor for others.
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Navigating careers in non-traditional work: Toward a more context-sensitive and dynamic research agenda
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Journal of Vocational Behavior Jos Akkermans, Daniel Spurk, Mina Beigi, Annabelle Hofer, Nele De Cuyper June 09, 2026
Training & Development Job Design Artificial Intelligence/Technology
Non-traditional work arrangements, including freelance, gig, platform-based, and entrepreneurial work, have moved from the margins to the mainstream of contemporary labor markets. These arrangements offer flexibility, autonomy, and new opportunities for meaningful work, yet they also bring insecurity, fragmented career paths, and limited institutional support. This editorial introduction article makes the case for studying non-traditional careers. It then provides an integrative overview of the six special issue articles, which explore how individuals navigate careers in non-traditional work, addressing themes such as identity and aspiration, calling and purpose, sensemaking during career shocks, proactive coping and self‑leadership, and the role of platforms and intermediaries. Across these contributions, two themes stand out: careers in non-traditional work are deeply context-bound, shaped by institutional, technological, and social environments that both enable and constrain individual agency; and they unfold temporally, through cycles of action, feedback, and adaptation. Building on these insights, we outline a research agenda calling for more context-sensitive and dynamic approaches to studying non-traditional careers.
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Endogenous Sources of Uncertainty: The Role of Firm Status in Shaping Financially Uncertain Investments
Academy of Management Journal Anran Li, MICHAEL JENSEN June 09, 2026
Research Methods Performance Job Attitudes Networks Training & Development
This study examines the relationship between firm status and investment activities. Focusing specifically on financially uncertain investments, we argue that middle-status firms engage in more financially uncertain investments than low- and high-status firms. Moreover, the extent to which firms perform above historical and social benchmarks mitigates the relationship between status and financially uncertain investments. We find broad support for our arguments in a longitudinal sample of privately controlled listed Chinese firms traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. Specifically, we find that social benchmarks based on comparisons to firms in the same industry and status group mitigate the inverted U-shaped relationship between status and financially uncertain investments. Moreover, the effect of industry benchmarks, not status benchmarks, is stronger than the effect of historical benchmarks, that is, comparisons to own past performance.
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Trust erosion and the emergence of meaningless work in the platform economy: evidence from Egyptian SMEs
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Journal of Managerial Psychology Samar Abdalla, Joseph Amankwah-Amoah, Emmanuel Mogaji, Manjusha Hirekhan June 09, 2026
Research Methods Training & Development Job Attitudes Diversity & Inclusion Measurement & Psychometrics
Purpose This study investigates how managerial practices in the sharing economy (SE) ecosystem can create conditions leading to the erosion of trust and the emergence of meaningless work. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with SME owners, mediators, providers, customers, and government officials in Egypt, we identify three critical dimensions: the roots of discontent, counterproductive working conditions, and the lack of transparency in regulatory and policy enforcement. These mechanisms foster work alienation, psychological contract breaches, and job roles devoid of purpose, leading to workforce disengagement, and socio-economic stagnation. By exploring the intersection of managerial ineffectiveness and trust dynamics, this paper expands the debate on how platform-based labour can reproduce meaningless work. We highlight theoretical and practical implications for policy and organisational reform. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative, multi-stakeholder case study design. 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted with mediators, providers, customers, and government officials engaged in Egypt’s platform economy. Data were coded and analysed using NVivo, generating first-order categories, second-order themes, and three aggregate dimensions of trust erosion. Triangulation across stakeholder groups strengthened the validity of insights, while iterative memo writing and reflexive analysis enhanced the depth and credibility of interpretation. Findings Trust erosion in Egypt’s platform economy unfolds across three dimensions: roots of discontent, counterproductive working conditions, and opacity in regulatory enforcement. Together, these factors foster alienation, disengagement, and perceptions of meaningless work. Workers face precarious, low-value roles, customers experience safety and accountability concerns, and mediators bypass local inefficiencies by relocating abroad. Ultimately, fragile institutions and exploitative practices entrench distrust and hinder inclusive economic development. Research limitations/implications This study focuses on Egypt, limiting generalisability to other contexts. Findings are derived from qualitative interviews without quantitative validation, though this aligns with the study’s exploratory aim. Future research should compare trust erosion across traditional versus platform-based markets and extend the analysis to multiple developing economies. Mixed-method and longitudinal studies are recommended to capture variations in trust over time and validate emergent theoretical patterns. Practical implications Managers in the platform economy must prioritise transparency, accountability, and worker protections to rebuild trust and ensure meaningful work. This includes adopting secure verification systems, fair compensation structures, and robust dispute-resolution mechanisms. Policymakers should streamline digital governance, enforce labour rights, and incentivise SMEs to operate formally. Addressing regulatory gaps can stabilise the ecosystem, attract investment, and strengthen entrepreneurial resilience. Social implications The findings reveal how fragile governance and exploitative practices perpetuate inequality, alienation, and distrust. Rebuilding trust requires coordinated reform across government, business, and civil society to safeguard vulnerable workers and consumers. Ensuring meaningful work strengthens social cohesion, enhances labour dignity, and fosters inclusive growth in digital economies. Without reforms, platform economies risk entrenching precarity and socio-economic stagnation. Originality/value This study is among the first to link trust erosion with the rise of meaningless work in platform-based SMEs within a fragile economy. By integrating perspectives from multiple stakeholders, it advances theoretical understanding of managerial dysfunction, institutional voids, and digital labour precarity. The findings enrich debates on the dark side of the platform economy and offer actionable pathways for reform to restore dignity and trust in work.
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Does Expressing Anxiety at Work Help or Hurt? The Affiliative and Social Distancing Consequences of Coworker Anxiety Expression
Personnel Psychology Diwan Li, Katrina Jia Lin, Bonnie Hayden Cheng, Yidong Tu June 08, 2026
Training & Development Networks Research Methods Selection & Assessment Health & Well-Being
ABSTRACT Integrating the emotions as social information (EASI) theory and the signaling functions of anxiety, we develop and test a within‐person dual‐path model to unravel the benefits (affiliative consequences) and costs (social distancing consequences) of daily anxiety expression at work within coworker relationships, as well as the boundary conditions that influence these outcomes from an observer's perspective. Observing a coworker expressing anxiety on a given day may elicit an employee's perspective taking due to the signal of neediness, resulting in increased helping behavior directed toward that coworker. The same expression may also evoke perceptions of incompetence because of the signal of weakness, thereby leading to greater ostracism toward that coworker. We hypothesize that the presence of overall rivalry between the employee and the anxious coworker serves as a critical boundary condition that shapes the intensity of these within‐person affiliative and socially distancing processes. We tested our theoretical model using a 10‐day experience sampling study and a within‐person experiment. Our findings inform theory and practice by extending knowledge on the positive and negative reactions to daily coworker anxiety expression and illustrating the pivotal role of rivalry perceptions in modulating reactions to coworker anxiety expression at work.
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Do Men Who Spill the Tea in Teams Get Burned? Gender Differences in Perceived Competence and Leadership Emergence of Team Members Who Gossip
Journal of Organizational Behavior Andrea L. Hetrick, Trevor Spoelma, Lisa A. Marchiondo June 08, 2026
Teams Diversity & Inclusion Leadership Selection & Assessment Performance
ABSTRACT Gossip has historically been viewed as a form of deviant behavior. However, research in recent years has offered a more nuanced perspective. We aim to reconcile contrasting perspectives regarding whether gossip is beneficial or harmful to leadership emergence in teams. We do so by integrating role congruity theory and research on prescriptive gender stereotypes to examine how the gossiper's gender shapes these effects. Due to gender role prescriptions, we hypothesize that men who gossip will have lower competence perceptions and subsequent leadership emergence than women who gossip. We conducted three studies to test our theoretical model. Study 1 was a time‐separated, multi‐source study of intact student project teams. Study 2 was an experimental vignette study that manipulated gossip and employee gender in a team context. Study 3 was an experimental critical incident recall study that also manipulated gossip and employee gender in a group setting. The studies supported our theoretical model, demonstrating that individuals in teams give lower competence and leadership ratings to men who gossip compared with women who gossip. Implications for theory and research are discussed.
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Motivator or burden? Unpacking the dual paths from leadership performance expectations to employee behavior
Journal of Managerial Psychology Kai Yao, Wei Chen, Zhaoying Fan, Fang Zhang June 08, 2026
Motivation Performance Research Methods Leadership Health & Well-Being
Purpose This study investigates how Leadership performance expectations affect employee work effort and emotional exhaustion through dual pathways – perceived competence and performance pressure – moderated by regulatory focus (promotion and Prevention focus). Design/methodology/approach A multi-wave survey tested main effects, while a scenario-based experiment validated the model using path analysis and bootstrapping for statistical rigor. Findings Leadership performance expectations enhance perceived competence (increasing work effort, reducing emotional exhaustion) and performance pressure (elevating emotional exhaustion, with mixed impact on work effort). Promotion focus strengthens the competence pathway, while moderation by prevention focus was not supported. Research limitations/implications This study relies on self-reported data, which may introduce common method bias despite procedural remedies. The sample is limited to Asian employees, restricting cross-cultural generalizability. Moreover, the dual effects of performance pressure may vary over time, as reflected in the different results across survey and experimental studies. Future research should adopt multi-source, longitudinal, and cross-cultural designs to validate and extend the model, and further explore how temporal dynamics, cultural contexts, and leadership styles interact with individual traits to shape the motivational and stress-related outcomes of leader performance expectations. Practical implications Leaders should frame expectations to affirm competence, tailor them to promotion-focused employees, and provide resources to mitigate performance pressure, fostering sustained effort and employee well-being. Social implications Leadership performance expectations influence not only organizational outcomes but also broader employee well-being and social sustainability. By balancing competence-enhancing expectations with support that mitigates pressure, organizations can foster healthier workplaces that reduce stress-related costs and enhance employee resilience. Promoting environments where individuals feel capable and valued contributes to stronger social capital, higher work–life balance, and reduced burnout risks. These practices benefit not only employees but also families, communities, and society by cultivating sustainable human resources and healthier labor markets. Originality/value Drawing on conservation of resources and cognitive appraisal theories, this study reveals dual resource-gain/loss mechanisms and regulatory focus as boundary conditions, reconciling mixed findings on Leadership performance expectations and enriching leadership-behavior theory.
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Skill variety, agentic work behaviors and thriving at work: a longitudinal investigation
Journal of Managerial Psychology Xingxin Fu, Wei Zeng June 08, 2026
Research Methods Job Design Training & Development Job Attitudes Social Responsibility
Purpose Based on conservation of resources theory and the socially embedded model of thriving, this study examines how skill variety and thriving at work form a dynamic reciprocal process over time by investigating the longitudinal mediating role of agentic work behaviors. Design/methodology/approach Using three-wave survey data from employees in the baking industry, this study tests a longitudinal mediation model through cross-lagged panel analyses, examining how skill variety is linked to thriving at work via agentic work behaviors. Findings Results show that skill variety positively predicts subsequent agentic work behaviors, which in turn foster thriving at work. Conversely, thriving at work predicts later individuals’ perceptions of skill variety. Research limitations/implications While the longitudinal design strengthens temporal inference, causal conclusions remain limited. Future research could use experimental or alternative longitudinal models to further clarify within-person dynamics and resource gain spirals. Practical implications The findings suggest that organizations can foster thriving by designing jobs with greater skill variety and by creating conditions that support employees’ proactive engagement with their work. Originality/value By integrating work design, agentic behavior and thriving from a dynamic perspective, this study advances understanding of how and when work design resources are translated into sustained vitality and learning over time.
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Gender-inclusive job titles: how language forms shape job pursuit intentions
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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Maria Hällfritzsch, Sabine Sczesny, Joachim Hßffmeier, Hannes Zacher June 08, 2026
Selection & Assessment Diversity & Inclusion
Masculine job titles in job advertisements, though intended as gender-inclusive, carry a male bias that can induce a perceived lack-of-fit with the position among women. Conversely, job titles that include a feminine form may signal that women are suited, while potentially lowering the job’s perceived prestige, as femininity is associated with lower status. In a between-person experiment (N = 506) in German language, we tested how four job title forms intended as gender-inclusive affect women’s and men’s expected belongingness, perceived job prestige, and job pursuit intentions: the (1) masculine + m/w/d (German: male/female/diverse), (2) word pair (masculine/feminine), (3) feminine + m/w/d, and (4) asterisk form, a newer gender-inclusive option in German (English: wait*ress). Among women, feminine + m/w/d (vs. masculine + m/w/d) job titles increased job pursuit intentions through expected belongingness. Among men, word pairs and masculine + m/w/d (vs. feminine + m/w/d) job titles increased job pursuit intentions through expected belongingness. Prestige ratings for word pair, asterisk, or feminine + m/w/d job titles (vs. masculine + m/w/d) were lower for gender-balanced jobs, but higher for typically feminine jobs. These findings illustrate how language forms in grammatical gender languages, such as German, can affect both applicant interest and perceptions of jobs.
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Blessing or Curse? Understanding When and How Coworkers Negatively or Positively React to Leader Gratitude Expression
Journal of Organizational Behavior Bo Lv, Jie Xiao, Ping Jin, Hongyu Xue, Jiaxin Xue, et al. June 07, 2026
Leadership Performance Training & Development Individual Differences
ABSTRACT While previous studies have mainly adopted a dyadic lens to examine the influence of leader gratitude expression, our research shifts the focus to a third‐party perspective to understand coworkers' dual reactions to it. Drawing on the appraisal theories of emotion, our research identifies coworker trait psychological entitlement as a key boundary condition influencing their appraisals and subsequent responses. Specifically, we propose that, when observing leader gratitude expression directed at focal employees, coworkers with higher levels of psychological entitlement are more likely to appraise the gratitude as undeserving, leading to feelings of envy and, consequently, social undermining. In contrast, coworkers with lower levels of psychological entitlement are more likely to appraise the gratitude as deserving and feel admiration after observing it, thereby increasing affiliative citizenship behavior. We find support for our hypotheses in two field studies and a scenario‐based experiment. Our research highlights the dual effects of leader gratitude expression within the broader social context involving coworkers, contributing to both the existing literature and managerial practice.
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Enforced but not Enacted: How Return‐to‐Office Policies Reshape Boundary Enactment, Work‐Location Volition, and Eudaimonic Wellbeing
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Human Resource Management MICHAEL E. CLINTON, Tara Reich, Amanda Jones, H. Wu June 07, 2026
Health & Well-Being Networks Selection & Assessment HR Systems & Talent Management Remote Work
ABSTRACT HR faces a conundrum over how to organize hybrid working patterns given the pros and cons associated with conducting work across multiple domains. Many organizations are currently seeking to clarify and often increase the requirements for employee presence at employer premises, meaning studies are needed to better understand how HR should look to influence decision‐making regarding office attendance practices. We draw on theories of boundary control to examine the relationship between return‐to‐office (RTO) policy enforcement, office time, and eudaimonic worker wellbeing; specifically work‐related vitality and work meaningfulness. We propose that enforced RTO policies serve to lower eudaimonic wellbeing via reducing both the psychological experiences of volition (working from one's preferred location) and control (being able to choose where one works). Across two time‐lagged survey studies, including a field study in an organization implementing a new RTO policy (Study 1), we find broad support for our propositions. We further find higher office time does not automatically follow RTO policy implementation and that office time is unrelated to eudaimonic worker wellbeing. In our third study, interview data collected over 2 years from key stakeholders of the RTO implementation allows us to explore unresolved and new questions prompted by the two survey studies. We discuss these findings in relation to building theory‐informed insights into office attendance policies and the importance of worker volition and control over hybrid working patterns.
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The Double-Edged Sword of Digital Communication: A Social Network Analysis of Email’s Influence on Employee Performance and Well-Being
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Journal of Business and Psychology Natalia Bagnoli, Gabriele Boccoli, Elia Rigamonti, Luca Gastaldi, Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, et al. June 06, 2026
Networks Research Methods Performance Health & Well-Being Training & Development
Abstract This study explores the dual role of digital communication on employee performance and well-being. Prior research highlights that individuals with central positions in communication networks benefit from greater access to information, enhanced innovation, and improved organizational outcomes. However, recent findings point also to the risk of information overload as digital connectivity increases. This research examines whether employees’ structural position in an email communication network is positively associated with work performance, engagement, and job satisfaction and whether this relationship follows a curvilinear pattern. The analysis is based on over 1.4 million emails exchanged among 1149 employees of a major Italian bank over a 1-year period during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social network data were integrated with survey responses on job satisfaction and engagement, as well as supervisor-rated performance evaluations. Social network analysis and regression techniques were employed to examine the associations between employees’ structural positions in the email network and individual outcomes. The results reveal that the breadth of distinct contacts and the volume of email exchanges operate through theoretically distinct mechanisms depending on the outcome considered. These findings offer new theoretical and practical insights into how email communication structures relate to employee well-being and productivity and highlight the need to balance connectivity and communication volume in digitally mediated work environments.
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From humble beginnings to a critical juncture: redirecting research on humble leadership
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Leadership Quarterly Allan Lee, Joanne Lyubovnikova, Niels Van Quaquebeke, Amy Wei Tian, Inmaculada Adarves‐Yorno June 06, 2026
Leadership Performance Training & Development Individual Differences Networks
Recent reviews portray humble leadership as a near-universal asset, yet a close inspection of 217 journal articles (274 studies) suggests the construct rests on shaky ground. Prevailing definitions conflate self-insight, appreciation of others, and teachability, variables rooted in other literatures, creating tautologies and valence-based halo. Measurement issues compound the problem: 84% of studies rely on surveys, so ratings of “humble leadership” are conflated by various mechanisms (e.g., evaluative judgments, performance-cue effects, omitted variables) and should not be used as independent variables. We argue that progress on this topic depends on shifting attention from traits and evaluations toward the behaviors that humility denotes: voluntary, public, status-minimizing acts through which leaders redirect credit away from themselves. With this definition, we integrate signaling theory with an idiosyncrasy-credit perspective, arguing that self-effacement behaviors function as costly signals: they translate into humility perceptions only when paired with accrued credit that is placed at risk. It follows, for instance, that signaling humility in the absence of established credit is likely to backfire. We develop testable propositions, a conceptual model linking accrued credit to signal credibility, and an incentive-compatible laboratory paradigm that enables identification of the causal effects of instrumented humility signaling. We conclude with recommendations for behavioral coding, archival text analysis, and experimentally grounded field designs that can replace halo-laden survey inferences with more credible evidence on when humility signaling helps, when it harms, and when it goes unnoticed.
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Visioning to transform: a systematic review of leader vision research from a motivational perspective
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology Eko Yi Liao, Chun Hui, Xudong Ke June 06, 2026
Motivation Leadership Organizational Change Research Methods Performance
Vision is a powerful tool for motivating employees to achieve collective goals with a compelling image of a desirable future. It has been extensively studied from diverse perspectives, including leadership, organizational vision, and vision communication. While extant research offers valuable insights into different aspects of leader vision, findings remain fragmented, necessitating effective synthesis. In leadership research, vision is often embedded within broader theories that incorporate additional components (e.g. charismatic leadership and transformational leadership). Meanwhile, the organizational vision and vision communication literature provides a multitude of definitions and foci on vision formation and delivery characteristics, leaving how vision is accepted and drives motivation understudied. Based on a systematic review of 417 literature sources, we developed an integrative model of leader vision, proposed its comprehensive definition, and identified central elements of a strong vision. We introduce three motivational properties of leader vision – transcendence (elevating employees to higher-level meanings and values), efficacy (enhancing employees’ subjective and objective performance capacity), and collectivity (strengthening interpersonal relationships within the collective) – that serve as a bridge across the diverse perspectives adopted in prior studies. Furthermore, we provide testable propositions of the proposed integrative model of leader vision to enlighten future research.
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Outsiders at the Helm: When Institutional Outsiderness Helps or Hurts Public Leaders’ Crisis Management Performance
Organization Science Lin Jiang, Dong Liu, Yan Yu June 05, 2026
Performance Training & Development Leadership Individual Differences Health & Well-Being
Institutional outsiders have become increasingly common in public administrations, coinciding with a growing prevalence of public crises. Yet we know little about whether and under what conditions leaders with limited political experience perform well or poorly during such crises. Drawing on strategic leadership and institutional change research, we develop competing hypotheses and a contingency framework that explains how public leaders’ institutional outsiderness shapes their crisis management performance. We argue that outsiderness can either hinder or facilitate crisis response, depending on conditions that affect leaders’ ability to effectively enact institutional change. Specifically, institutional outsiderness is more likely to hinder crisis management when leaders (i) operate in highly institutionalized environments, (ii) lack relevant crisis management experience, and (iii) hold low precrisis social approval. Using data on U.S. state governors during the COVID-19 pandemic (Study 1), we find that governors’ institutional outsiderness is associated with lower crisis management performance, especially under these conditions. However, when institutionalization is low, outsiderness is associated with higher crisis management performance. We conducted a second study with a different sample and crisis context (U.S. state governors during the 2008 financial crisis) and partially replicate the results from Study 1. Together, our results suggest that whether institutional outsiderness is a liability or an asset for crisis management depends on contextual and leader-level conditions. These findings contribute to research on crisis leadership, strategic leadership, and public administration. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/2024.18656 .
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Robustness Analysis in Quantitative Management Research: A Review and Recommendations
Journal of Management Shuai Yuan, Deanne N. Den Hartog, Y Liu, Annebel H. B. De Hoogh, Lujia (Sophia) Sun, et al. June 05, 2026
Research Methods Selection & Assessment Training & Development Measurement & Psychometrics Leadership
Robustness analysis assesses the fragility or stability of empirical findings by testing whether research findings remain stable across alternative, justifiable analytical choices. Understanding the robustness of empirical results is important both for management scholars to build reliable theories and for management practitioners to derive appropriate practical implications for decision-making. Yet, the management field currently faces three problems in designing and reporting robustness analysis: terminological confusion, fragmented recommendations across isolated topics without integration, and a lack of systematic evidence on actual reporting practices. This paper clarifies the concept of robustness analysis and distinguishes it from related credibility-enhancing practices. Using a framework encompassing six key dimensions of robustness (i.e., methods, measurements, covariates, preprocessing, subsampling, and statistical specifications), we review and synthesize the currently fragmented recommendations for each dimension. Next, to systematically review the reporting of robustness practices, we develop a hybrid Generative AI-assisted coding approach enabling the analysis of a larger volume of articles than feasible with human coding alone. In a systematic review of 1,706 articles containing 2,770 quantitative sub-studies published in seven leading management journals (2020–2025), we find that reporting of robustness analyses is often done narrowly and inconsistently, scattered across multiple article sections, and using different terms. Our findings reveal gaps between recommended and documented practices, between macro and micro domains, and across time periods. Based on the review results, we offer recommendations for conducting and reporting robustness analyses.
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Rewriting the Imprint: How #MeToo Led CEOs From Male-Dominant Cultures to Increase Gender Equality
Journal of Management Michael J. Mueller, Taco H. Reus June 05, 2026
Organizational Culture Motivation Diversity & Inclusion Leadership Organizational Change
This paper examines how CEOs’ cultural imprints shape women’s representation in corporate leadership and how social movements can alter these effects. Building on imprinting theory, we argue that transformative social movements, such as the #MeToo movement, can create secondary sensitive periods during which deeply ingrained imprints are revisited and reinterpreted. Using a difference-in-differences design in the U.S. information and communications technology sector, we find that, before #MeToo, firms led by CEOs from male-dominant cultures employed fewer women in senior management. After the movement’s emergence, however, these CEOs increased women’s representation more strongly than their peers from more gender-egalitarian cultures. The effect persisted through 2024, was concentrated in male-typed roles, and was strongest among younger CEOs, consistent with intrinsic rather than purely extrinsic motives. Complementary analyses of employees’ career trajectories, employee reviews, and CEO speech suggest that these changes reflect shifts in promotion dynamics, organizational culture, and CEOs’ emphasis on integrity and respect. Together, the findings show that social movements can prompt lasting behavioral change among leaders whose cultural imprints are most directly challenged.
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Differentiating Newcomers and Transitioning Incumbents: The Dynamic Evolution of Organizational Trust During Role Transitions
Journal of Organizational Behavior Ilanit SimanTov‐Nachlieli, Liangting Zhang June 04, 2026
Training & Development Social Responsibility Turnover & Retention Organizational Change Research Methods
ABSTRACT Despite theoretical advances highlighting the pivotal role of organizational trust in shaping newcomer outcomes, its dynamic evolution during role transitions has yet to receive sustained longitudinal attention. Drawing on sensemaking theory and staged socialization models, we find that, among role‐transitioning employees, organizational trust follows a U‐shaped trajectory—declining initially before recovering over time. This curvilinear pattern also varied as a function of the nature of the transition—entering the organization from outside versus moving into a new role from within (i.e., distinguishing newcomers from internal transferees). Specifically, using five waves of longitudinal data collected over a yearlong onboarding period within an IT firm, we found that newcomers and transferees (compared to veterans) experienced a subtle U‐shaped curvilinear trajectory of organizational trust, with this pattern being more pronounced for newcomers than for transferees. This trajectory was further attenuated by leader–member exchange for newcomers and by social integration for both newcomers and transferees. Finally, it had implications for changes in employee turnover intentions over time. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
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Exploring Leaders’ Mindfulness in Navigating Organizational Paradox
Organization Science Gail Fairhurst, Sophia Town, Sarah Tracy June 04, 2026
Job Attitudes Research Methods Leadership Networks
This study focuses on the role of mindfulness in organizational leaders’ responses to paradoxical tensions. We arrive at this focus by interpreting the organizational paradox literature as suggesting two primary ways that leaders mindfully engage paradoxical tensions, which work in tandem. There is an absorbed mode implied in embracing tensions and finding energy in them and a more deliberative mode in weighing tensional poles to formulate more adaptive responses. A view of mindfulness as a metacognitive practice skillfully captures both absorbed and deliberative aspects, offering a way to understand the role of mindfulness in responding to paradoxical tensions. In this qualitative study, we explore how leaders with and without a regular mindfulness practice deploy these dual approaches in their sensemaking accounts of paradoxical tensions. Findings suggest that leaders who do not practice mindfulness relied heavily on deliberative engagement and pivoted less often between absorbed and deliberative modes. Leaders who practice mindfulness focused on absorbed engagement and pivoted more often between modes. Our analysis suggests that absorbed and deliberative practices together provide mindfulness-trained leaders with just enough structure to cope with paradoxical tensions by turning them into focused learners with flexible processing, expanded repertoires, and holistic engagement.
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How the technical features of generative AI address employee needs: an affordance and disaffordance lens
Journal of Managerial Psychology Zhongyun Zhou, Yuming Guo, Fangzhan Lin, Youqing Lu June 03, 2026
Artificial Intelligence/Technology Research Methods Networks Selection & Assessment Individual Differences
Purpose The technical features of generative artificial intelligence (AI) can both assist employees and, conversely, hinder their need fulfillment. A thorough analysis is necessary for managers to appropriately harness the value of generative AI in the workplace. To this end, this study employs an affordance and disaffordance lens to explore the relationship between the technical features of generative AI and employee needs. Specifically, it examines how the technical features of generative AI lead to affordances or disaffordances for employees, thereby meeting or failing to meet their needs. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was employed to investigate the relationship between the technical features of generative AI and employee needs. Nineteen employees from various industries were invited to share their experiences using generative AI in work tasks through semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was conducted using reflexive thematic analysis within the “needs-affordances-features” (NAF) theoretical framework. Findings This study identified that five technical features of generative AI lead to thirteen affordances/disaffordances, which in turn meet or fail to meet four categories of employee needs. Originality/value By introducing an affordance and disaffordance lens, this study explores the interplay between the technical features of generative AI, affordances/disaffordances and employee needs, providing rich and systematic insights into understanding this relationship. This supports managers in aligning generative AI with employee needs. Additionally, by integrating the concept of disaffordance with the NAF framework, this study enhances the understanding of affordance theory. Furthermore, several implications for managerial practice are discussed.
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Hidden Traits, Visible Reaction? Ability to Identify Criteria and Reactions to an Implicit Test of Workplace Psychopathy
Journal of Personnel Psychology Ryan Cook, Nicolas Roulin, Brittany Houson June 03, 2026
Selection & Assessment Individual Differences Measurement & Psychometrics Research Methods Performance
Abstract: Workplace psychopathy is linked to harmful outcomes, yet it is rarely assessed in hiring due to limitations of existing tools. The Conditional Reasoning Test for Workplace Psychopathy offers a promising alternative by using implicit reasoning to reduce faking. We examined whether test-takers could identify the test’s purpose (ATIC) and how different types of disclosure impacted test-takers’ reactions in two studies: a generic application scenario with ( N = 187) students and a more ecologically valid scenario with ( N = 230) active job-seekers. Most participants did not recognize the test assessed psychopathy. ATIC scores were unrelated (Study 1) or weakly related (Study 2) to test performance. Reactions were moderate, although disclosing that the test measures psychopathy (vs. personality) led to slightly lower justice perceptions and organization attraction.
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Discrimination Is Not OK, but… – When Discrimination Based on Political Orientation Is Considered Legitimate
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Journal of Personnel Psychology Denise Vesper, Philipp Schäpers, Cornelius J. KÜnig June 03, 2026
Training & Development Diversity & Inclusion Selection & Assessment Networks Measurement & Psychometrics
Abstract: This study extended models of third-party perceptions of workplace mistreatment by examining political orientation as a basis for discrimination and how political (dis)similarity between third-party observers and victims shapes legitimacy judgments. Using a pre-registered experimental between-subjects design, 667 French participants read a scenario where a candidate was rejected for political views. We measured perceived similarity, legitimacy of the decision, and willingness to cooperate. Results show that third-party observers with a similar political orientation to that of the candidate reported significantly lower legitimacy of the discriminatory hiring decision. Those high in social dominance orientation viewed it as more legitimate. Perceived similarity also increased willingness to cooperate. Findings suggest political similarity fosters biases that legitimize hiring discrimination among third parties.
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Different Levels, Same Relations? A Meta‐Analysis on the Homology of the Nomological Network of (Daily) Work Engagement
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Journal of Organizational Behavior Jan Luca Pletzer, Nadine Planken, Kimberley Breevaart, Despoina Xanthopoulou, Arnold B. Bakker June 02, 2026
Job Attitudes Networks Training & Development Health & Well-Being Diversity & Inclusion
ABSTRACT Work engagement has garnered significant attention from researchers and practitioners in recent decades, and several meta‐analyses have examined its stable, between‐person correlates. However, work engagement also has a dynamic component, meaning that it varies daily, across situations, and within individuals. Despite growing interest, the strength and direction of many associations within the nomological network of daily work engagement, as well as their consistency with the relations observed for stable manifestations of work engagement, remain unclear. In the present study, we meta‐analyze within‐person correlations of work engagement from daily diary studies ( k = 230) and compare them to (a) meta‐analytic between‐person correlations based on aggregated daily scores and (b) true between‐person correlations from earlier meta‐analyses. Our findings reveal important similarities and differences in the nomological networks of daily and stable work engagement but generally demonstrate that predictions derived from major theories are invariant across levels of analyses. Yet, differences exist in the strength of relations, which could not be attributed to differences in reliabilities across levels or to aggregation bias, suggesting that theories should be refined to account for level‐specific differences. We conclude by providing specific recommendations for the development and refinement of multilevel theories explaining work engagement.
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Shareholder Activism and Corporate Political Activity: A Governance Systems Perspective
Organization Science Mark R. DesJardine, Wei Shi, Zhihui Sun June 02, 2026
Motivation Social Responsibility Training & Development Health & Well-Being Organizational Culture
Research documents that firms targeted by financially motivated shareholder activists often reduce spending in areas with uncertain or delayed payoffs. Yet, it is unclear whether this pattern extends to corporate political activity (CPA), particularly lobbying—an investment that is relatively inexpensive and can generate substantial benefits in the short run. We investigate how governance conditions shape the influence of block-holding activism on firm lobbying expenditures. Drawing on an emerging systems perspective on shareholder activism, we theorize how boards (as capability providers) and nonactivist shareholders (as sources of support) shape firms’ lobbying behavior amid shareholder activism. Using panel data on 4,991 U.S. public firms, we find that the influence of block-holding activism on lobbying depends on the governance context; firms with more political directors and greater ownership by lobbying-active shareholders sustain their lobbying following activism, whereas firms without these governance features reduce it. The influence of political directors is amplified when they have greater bandwidth, and the influence of lobbying-active shareholders is strengthened when they have held their positions longer. Our study contributes to CPA research by demonstrating that governance systems determine how activism shapes firms’ political strategies and extends the systems perspective on activism into nonmarket domains of strategy. Funding: M. R. DesJardine acknowledges research support from The Wharton School’s Impact, Value, and Sustainable Business Initiative. W. Shi acknowledges financial support from the University of Miami Provost Research Award. Z. Sun acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72502157] as well as the Humanities and Social Science Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China [Grant 24YJC630189]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2024.19974 .
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Sources
Academy of Management Journal | Academy of Management Review | Administrative Science Quarterly | Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior | European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology | Group & Organization Management | Human Performance | Human Resource Development Quarterly | Human Resource Management | Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice | International Journal of Selection and Assessment | Journal of Applied Psychology | Journal of Business and Psychology | Journal of Management | Journal of Managerial Psychology | Journal of Occupational Health Psychology | Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology | Journal of Organizational Behavior | Journal of Personnel Psychology | Journal of Vocational Behavior | Leadership Quarterly | Organization Science | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes | Organizational Psychology Review | Personnel Psychology | Work & Stress