Accuracy and effectiveness in appraisal outcomes: the influence of self‐efficacy,personal factors and organisational variables

Two studies tested relationships of personal factors and organisational context variables with rating accuracy and perceived effectiveness of appraisals, and the role of self‐efficacy as a mediator of the relationships between the two sets of variables. Study 1 was a controlled experiment in which nurse supervisors appraised a video stimulus of a nurse's performance. Study 2 was a field study in which nurses and their supervisors each independently completed an assessment of their annual appraisal review, following the meeting. A ten‐item scale for performance appraiser self‐efficacy (PASE) was developed and tested for measurement properties on a large sample of nurses that included those who participated in either Study 1 or Study 2. The PASE scale was found to have high reliability and reasonable predictive validity. PASE predicted rating accuracy, appraiser and appraisee perceptions of effectiveness, and appraiser‐appraisee agreement on the effectiveness of an actual appraisal, after controlling for the effects of personal factors and organisational context. The main contextual influences were accountability, importance and management concern but the effects varied for self‐efficacy and different appraisal outcomes. The main predictor of self‐efficacy was the amount of training received by appraisers across the multiple sub‐tasks of appraisal.     

The impacts of perceived moral obligation and sustainability self‐identity on sustainability development: A theory of planned behavior purchase intention model of sustainability‐labeled coffee and the moderating effect of climate change skepticism

This study sought to elucidate the antecedents that may influence the effect of people's purchase behavior on the Earth's sustainable development. It included people's perceived moral obligation and sustainability self‐identity in the theory of planned behavior (TPB) model to investigate attitudes among the Taiwanese public's attitude toward purchasing sustainability‐labeled coffee and their purchase intentions. The moderating effect of climate change skepticism is also considered in this study. A total of 745 nationwide and self‐reported questionnaire valid data was collected in Taiwan. Hierarchical and moderated regression analysis results indicated that the components of the TPB model had positive influences on the public's purchase intention. The public's perceived moral obligation and sustainability self‐identity, proposed for inclusion in the TPB model, had significant and positive influences on purchase intention. The extended TPB model has higher explanatory power than that of the original model. The positive relationship between sustainability self‐identity and intention to purchase sustainability‐labeled coffee was moderated by climate change skepticism. This study provides marketers and the players in the supply chain with a comprehensive framework for understanding the influence of perceived moral obligation and sustainability self‐identity on purchase intention toward sustainability‐labeled products. In addition, this study responds to a call for a more thorough investigation of the effect of people's skepticism about climate change in the context of ethical and sustainable consumption decision‐making processes.     

Empowered self‐development and continuous learning

Organizational changes are creating the need for continuous learning environments that support employees' self‐development. Self‐development means seeking and using feedback, setting development goals, engaging in developmental activities, and tracking progress on one's own. This assumes that people are capable not only of monitoring their own behaviors, but also of recognizing which behaviors and outcomes are most favorable and desirable. Drawing on self‐determination theory, this article shows how organizations can encourage self‐development by providing nonthreatening performance feedback, ensuring behavioral choices for learning, encouraging feedback seeking, and rewarding participation in learning activities and other self‐determined behavior. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A Stupidity‐Based Theory of Organizations

In this paper we question the one‐sided thesis that contemporary organizations rely on the mobilization of cognitive capacities. We suggest that severe restrictions on these capacities in the form of what we call functional stupidity are an equally important if under‐recognized part of organizational life. Functional stupidity refers to an absence of reflexivity, a refusal to use intellectual capacities in other than myopic ways, and avoidance of justifications. We argue that functional stupidity is prevalent in contexts dominated by economy in persuasion which emphasizes image and symbolic manipulation. This gives rise to forms of stupidity management that repress or marginalize doubt and block communicative action. In turn, this structures individuals' internal conversations in ways that emphasize positive and coherent narratives and marginalize more negative or ambiguous ones. This can have productive outcomes such as providing a degree of certainty for individuals and organizations. But it can have corrosive consequences such as creating a sense of dissonance among individuals and the organization as a whole. The positive consequences can give rise to self‐reinforcing stupidity. The negative consequences can spark dialogue, which may undermine functional stupidity.     

Redefining leader self‐awareness by integrating the second component of self‐awareness

This article aims to extend the current treatment of what constitutes leader self‐awareness. Discussion of self‐awareness in organizations and leadership research here focused on one component of self‐awareness; awareness of individual self‐resources. Drawing on Objective Self‐Awareness Theory (OSA theory, Duval & Wicklund, 1972), this paper explores a neglected second component of self‐awareness: the ability to anticipate the views of others. Leaders gain awareness of their influence on others through impulses to self‐focus, which leads to self‐evaluation against extrinsic standards, and insight regarding leader influence. Research and practical implications of the second component of self‐awareness are discussed.     

Transfer of training: Written self‐guidance to increase self‐efficacy and interviewing performance of job seekers

Subsequent to training IT professionals ( n = 35) in skills for performing effectively in a selection interview, 16 were randomly assigned to a transfer of training intervention, written self‐guidance (WSG). This methodology is based on social cognitive and self‐persuasion theories. The results showed that WSG resulted in significantly higher ratings from an interviewer than did those in the control group. Self‐efficacy for interviewing skill mediated the relationship between WSG and performance. A content analysis of the WSG letters showed that the use of self‐affirming and self‐relevant statements was positively related to performance in the selection interview. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

All in a day's work? Career self‐management and the management of the boundary between work and non‐work

This article reports the findings of a study that explored the links between career self‐management, management of the boundary between work and non‐work, and work–life balance, using a sample of young professionals. The findings show that individuals engage in different kinds of career self‐management behaviours, depending on their career goal. Management of the boundary between work and life outside work is identified as one such behaviour, with the consequence that, for some people, managing the career has a harmful effect on their work–life balance. The research adds to knowledge about the career self‐management process and shows how career stage influences career goals and career self‐management behaviour. It demonstrates how career attitudes and behaviours may be critical to the achievement of work–life balance and confirms that work–life balance matters to younger members of the workforce, regardless of their family responsibilities.     

An empirical study of other‐oriented and rational self‐interest leadership approaches

Other orientation is defined as “the extent to which individuals are concerned with the welfare of others” (Meglino & Korsgaard, 2007, p. 59). Other‐oriented leaders focus their attention on organizational objectives coupled with a human resource emphasis, whereas rational self‐interested leaders concern themselves with organizational objectives coupled with self‐emphasis. This quantitative study examines philanthropian and servant leadership, which are other‐oriented leadership approaches, and transactional leadership, which is a rational self‐interested leadership approach, to determine the effectiveness of the approaches in the 21st century. This study further examines the results of a hermeneutic phenomenological study of philanthropian leadership that introduced a new other‐oriented leadership model. This study focuses on leadership preferences of leaders, employees, and third‐year undergraduate business students to determine if there is a significant difference between preferences among groups for other‐oriented and rational self‐interest‐oriented leadership approaches.     

Workaholism versus work engagement and job crafting: What is the role of self‐management strategies?

Job crafting refers to the proactive actions employees take to redesign their jobs in order to get a better fit with their competencies, expectations, and wishes. So far, little is known about job crafting's underlying mechanisms. In this study, we examine how two different states of affective well‐being (workaholism and work engagement) relate to job crafting 3 months later and how these well‐being states steer different self‐management behaviours, which ultimately lead to job crafting. Structural equation modelling on a heterogeneous sample (N = 287) revealed that work engagement and workaholism both relate to expansive job crafting through different self‐management strategies. Work engagement relates to challenge and resource seeking via self‐goal setting and self‐observation strategies, whereas workaholism associates with challenge and resource seeking only through self‐goal setting. In addition, the results show a strong relationship between workaholism and self‐punishment. Altogether, the findings suggest that self‐management strategies can function as an explanatory mechanism for different job crafting behaviours.     

Thriving of employees with disabilities: The roles of job self‐efficacy,inclusion, and team‐learning climate

With the growing global emphasis on welfare‐to‐work policies, an increasing number of people with disabilities (PWD) have entered the workforce. However, studies on PWD have focused primarily on company practices to accommodate PWD, with a limited understanding of factors affecting psychological integration of PWD into the workplace. This scarcity in research makes it difficult for managers to utilize the full work potential of PWD. To fill this research gap, the current study focuses on the job self‐efficacy of PWD and investigates how employee disability interacts with inclusion and team‐learning climate to affect job self‐efficacy, and in turn thriving at work. Using a sample of 485 employees in 114 teams, surveys found job self‐efficacy was a key intervening mechanism linking employee disability to thriving at work. These results suggest high workplace inclusion can buffer potential negative effects of disability at the individual level, strengthened further by a high team‐learning climate. The data supported a three‐way cross‐level interaction effect of disability, inclusion, and team‐learning climate on the thriving of employees with disabilities, through job self‐efficacy. Our results demonstrate the importance of inclusion and team‐learning climate to foster employee thriving in a diverse workforce.     

Going beyond self–other rating comparison to measure leader self‐awareness

Data were collected from leaders who rated their interpersonal competencies, were rated by their direct reports on the same competencies, and then were asked to predict as accurately as possible how their direct reports rated them. Leader self‐awareness was examined by analyzing self–other ratings and prediction–other ratings with a supervisor‐rated measure of leader effectiveness. Results showed that prediction–other ratings explained a greater percentage of the variance in leader effectiveness than did self–other ratings. These results suggest that prediction–other rating comparison may be a viable additional way to measure self‐awareness in organizational settings and may avoid some of the disadvantages when only using self‐ratings or self–other ratings.     

Co‐workers' voice climate and affective commitment towards the team: A test of mediation and moderation

This article examines the consequences of co‐workers' voice climate, defined as a shared perception regarding how individuals who work together within the same unit and who do not have formal authority over each other judge the ability to participate in decision making inside teams. We argue that co‐workers' voice climate may influence individuals' perception of quality of social exchange with the team, operationalised through team–member exchange. These high‐quality exchanges with the team should, in turn, promote higher individual affective commitment towards the team. Furthermore, we hypothesised that the social exchange with the supervisor, operationalised through leader–member exchange, buffers the effect of co‐workers' voice climate on team–member exchange. These hypotheses were tested using a sample of 183 employees belonging to 31 teams. Our findings supported the theoretical model that was proposed, attesting to the importance of considering co‐workers' justice climate in the prediction of individual work attitudes. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Race,Self‐Employment,and Labor Absorption

Past studies have argued that in the large cities of developing societies, unemployment is often alleviated when displaced workers are absorbed into the small‐scale entrepreneurial activities of the informal economy. The present study applies this argument to an analysis of women's self‐employment in the U.S. South during the Great Depression. Census data show that in large southern cities in 1940, the unemployment of black women was meaningfully reduced by the self‐employment of these women in domestic service. These data further suggest that dynamics of race, unemployment, and the self‐employment of women in domestic service can be represented by an inverted‐U‐shaped labor absorption curve. These results make several contributions to research on race, labor‐market disadvantage, and self‐employment in the informal sector.     

The relationship between high performance work systems and employee proactive behaviour: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation as mediating mechanisms

Drawing on the contextual perspective, this study provides novel empirical evidence on how the organisational context (specifically, the firm's human resource strategy) has an effect on employee proactivity. We use matched data from managers and employees in 102 Spanish professional service firms to examine how high performance work systems contribute to enhance employee proactive behaviours through two motivational variables: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation. Results of a multilevel study demonstrate that role breadth self‐efficacy mediates between HPWS and employee proactivity, but flexible role orientation does not mediate this relationship.     

Through Thick and Thin? How Self‐determination Drives the Corporate Sustainability Initiatives of Multinational Subsidiaries

Multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries implement corporate sustainability initiatives (CSIs) if they are self‐determined to do so (based on intrinsic motivation) or when urged on by circumstances and pressures (based on extrinsic motivation). Such differences in self‐determination are derived from underlying corporate psychological needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness, and are manifested in the governance choices of making, allying or buying CSIs. In this study of oil and gas MNC subsidiaries in the developing country context of Trinidad and Tobago, four distinct types of firm are identified based on their levels of self‐determination and corporate governance tendencies. These groups are identified as trail blazers, marching soldiers, sharp shooters and fire fighters, and their distinctive characteristics are described. These findings are useful to corporate sustainability strategists seeking to select, design and implement CSIs that satisfy MNC headquarter directives but balance subsidiary objectives of maintaining good relations and access to operate in developing countries. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Individual differences in implicit theories of leadership ability and self‐efficacy: Predicting responses to stereotype threat

Extending research on implicit theories to the leadership domain, we examined how individual differences in belief about the malleability of leadership ability influenced responses to stereotype threat. The study consisted of two time periods. At time 1, we assessed individual differences in implicit theories of leadership ability and self‐efficacy for leadership. At time 2, we activated a stereotype threat in a high‐stakes environment. Results revealed that women reported lower self‐evaluation after a stereotype threat when they had low self‐efficacy and believed leadership ability to be fixed (entity theory) rather than malleable (incremental theory). Results are discussed in terms of how implicit theories generate a network of allied cognitions and emotions that subsequently predict stable patterns of behavior.     

Promoting organizational learning and self‐renewal in Taiwanese companies: The role of HRM

This study identifies key characteristics of human resource management (HRM) practices that contribute to promoting positive learning attitudes and creating a self‐renewal organizational climate. We use a behavioral perspective to develop a framework to show the relationships among learning‐oriented HRM, positive learning attitudes, and a self‐renewal organizational climate. Structural equation analysis is applied to empirically test the relationships and the path model suggests that a learning‐oriented HRM plays an important role in either directly creating a self‐renewal organizational climate or indirectly facilitating positive learning attitudes that foster organizational self‐renewal. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Evaluating the prevalence and distribution of dependent self‐employment: some lessons from the European Working Conditions Survey

This article advances understanding of the prevalence and distribution of dependent self‐employment. Analysing the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey of 35,765 employees in 28 European countries, the dependent self‐employed are found to comprise 4.3% (1 in 23) of the EU workforce, 47% of all those reporting themselves as self‐employed without employees and 31% of all self‐employed. The prevalence of dependent self‐employment, however, is found to have decreased since the previous 2010 survey, is not found to be concentrated among marginalised population groups and is significantly more likely in agriculture, forestry and fishing, arts, entertainment, recreation and other service activities, and the household services sector. The implications for theorising and tackling dependent self‐employment are discussed.     

Effects of Mentoring on the Development of Leadership Self‐Efficacy and Political Skill

This study of 260 business graduate students considered the relationship between mentoring and leadership self‐efficacy, and mentoring and political skill. Comparisons between nonmentored and mentored individuals showed that having a mentor was associated with increased political skill but not with increased leadership self‐efficacy. Among mentees, higher quality mentoring relationships were associated with significantly higher leadership self‐efficacy but not with significantly higher political skill. Results suggest that the presence of a mentor affects protégé development of political skill, but the quality of the relationship is important for protégé development of leadership self‐efficacy.     

Why Eco‐labels can be Effective Marketing Tools: Evidence from a Study on Italian Consumers

An emerging topic in environmental management studies is the role of eco‐labels in guiding consumers in their purchasing choices. In order to contribute to the current debate on this topic, this research paper aims to assess, through a quantitative analysis, whether the knowledge, awareness and information that consumers gather on the environmental impact of a product through an eco‐label can stimulate an eco‐friendly behavior. Moreover, we assess whether general attitudes in purchasing behaviors determine a personal attitude toward ecological consumption. The findings from this study, which is based on a large dataset of Italian consumers, highlight a significant role of eco‐labels in increasing the consumer's perceived behavioral control, unlike loyalty in brand and in store, which do not exert a significant influence. Practical implications for green business strategies emerge. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment