Carmen Kaman Ng

Hearts and minds Integrating regulatory focus and relational demography to explain responses to dissimilarity

We develop a theoretical framework to explain why individuals respond differently to dissimilarity from their coworkers. We draw on regulatory focus theory to explore how chronic regulatory motivations cause individuals to view dissimilarity in terms of potential gains or losses. We use this argument to explain the mixed findings in previous research. We also use regulatory focus theory to predict individuals’ cognitive and affective responses to dissimilarity, and consequently to outcomes like relationships with coworkers, altruism, conflict in workgroups, and withdrawal from the workgroup. Finally we use regulatory focus theory to explore how situational features like the diversity climate of the organization and whether the focal individual is a token in the workgroup shape their responses to dissimilarity by triggering different regulatory motivations. Taken together our motivational model of relational demography provides an overarching framework for understanding how attributes of the individual and the situation predict how they will respond.

The relationship between workgroup blending and perceived organizational inducements: The mediating roles of tasks and relationships

We argue that blending temporary and standard workers in workgroups is negatively associated with the extent to which standard workers perceive that the organization provides them inducements. This effect is proposed to be mediated by the negative effects of blending on standard workers’ tasks and relationships in the workgroup. Data from 176 standard workers in blended workgroups in a large research organization shows that a higher proportion of temporary workers is associated with an increase in standard workers’ informal administrative work, decrease in their quality of workgroup relationships, and subsequently lower perceptions that the organization provides them inducements.

PREFERENCE REVERSALS IN PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: A RANGE THEORY PERSPECTIVE.

Prior research in contextual effects on performance evaluation has primarily focused on the influence of performance level of other ratees per se, but has ignored the influence of performance range...