Claire M. Mason

Leader vision and the development of adaptive and proactive performance: a longitudinal study.

In this study, the authors investigated how leader vision influences the change-oriented behaviors of adaptivity and proactivity in the workplace. The authors proposed that leader vision would lead to an increase in adaptivity for employees who were high in openness to work role change. In contrast, they proposed leader vision would be associated with an increase in proactivity when employees were high in role breadth self-efficacy. These propositions were supported in a longitudinal survey of 102 employees who provided self-report data about their leader and their work behaviors. The findings provide insight into the interaction between leaders and followers in responding to a change imperative.

Identifying Group Task Satisfaction at Work

Group task satisfaction is defined as the groups shared attitude toward its task and the associated work environment. It represents the group-level counterpart to individual job satisfaction. An investigation of group task satisfaction in 47 student groups demonstrated that group members were able to distinguish among group task satisfaction, task cohesion, social cohesion, group potency, group climate, and individual job satisfaction. Ratings of group task satisfaction displayed within-group agreement and significant between-group variance. Group task satisfaction was related to the mean level of individual job satisfaction within the group and the quality of the groups work.

Group Task Satisfaction The Group’s Shared Attitude to its Task and Work Environment

Group task satisfaction has been conceptualized as the group-level counterpart to individual job satisfaction and represents the group’s shared attitude toward its task and work environment. This study investigated whether group task satisfaction would explain incremental variance in organizational citizenship behaviors, group performance, and absenteeism norms, after the variance explained by aggregated individual job satisfaction and group affective tone was taken into account. Survey data were collected from 66 work groups and 51 supervisors. Measures of group task satisfaction explained unique variance in ratings of citizenship behavior and absenteeism norms but did not explain unique variance in ratings of group performance. Our findings support the validity and utility of group task satisfaction and illustrate the importance of assessing group-level constructs directly.

Grouptask Satisfaction Applying the Construct of Job Satisfaction to Groups

This article reviews evidence for considering job satisfaction at the group level of analysis. Group-level job satisfaction is functionally independent of individual-level job satisfaction. This construct is labeled group task satisfaction and is defined as the groups shared attitude toward its task and the associated work environment. The authors propose that group task satisfaction develops out of within-group homogeneity in individual job satisfaction, which in turn is a product of the shared work conditions, social influence processes, attraction- selection-attrition effects, and emotional contagion effects associated with work groups. They predict that through group interaction, the within-group homogeneity in job satisfac- tion will come to be perceived as a characteristic of the group. Once identified as a group characteristic, group task satisfaction will be subject to processes such as polarization and prototyping, with the result that group task satisfaction should function independently of the mean level of job satisfaction within the group. The authors predict that group task satisfac- tion will be related to the mean level of individual job satisfaction within the group, the qual- ity of the groups processes, and the performance of the group, thus serving as an important indicator of team viability. This article represents a theoretical investigation of job satisfac- tion as a group-level construct. The job satisfaction construct has been thoroughly researched at the individual level. In contrast, only a small number of studies have investigated job satisfaction at the group level and organizational level, and in these studies, group- level and organizational-level job satisfaction have been

Help Yourself: The Mechanisms Through Which a Self-Leadership Intervention Influences Strain

This research reports on two field studies which demonstrate that self-leadership training decreases strain via increases in self-efficacy and positive affect. The first, an experimental study, found that strain was reduced in the randomly assigned training group, but not in the control group. The second was a longitudinal study and supported the hypotheses that self-efficacy and positive affect mediated the effect of self-leadership training on strain. Our findings extend both self-leadership and stress management literatures by providing a theoretical framework within which the effects of self-leadership on strain can be understood. Practically speaking, our findings suggest that self-leadership training offers an individual-level preventive approach to stress management.

Exploring the Processes Underlying Within-Group Homogeneity

Many group-level constructs are based on within-group homogeneity in attitudes, affect, beliefs, and perceptions. In this article, three models for the development of within-group homogeneity are delineated. These models are shown to have implications both for differences between variables in their level of homogeneity and the conditions under which relatively high and low homogeneity should be observed. The models are explored in a small sample (N = 24 groups), where homogeneity in job satisfaction, positive affect, potency beliefs, and task-identity perceptions is examined. The results indicate that variables differ in their mean level of homogeneity and suggest that homogeneity may be the product of a combination of processes. A hierarchical framework for the investigation of homogeneity is suggested for further research.

Transformational leadership development

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate whether leaders whose transformational leadership behavior improves after training exhibit different psychological reactions compared to leaders whose leadership behavior does not improve. Design/methodology/approach – The authors followed 56 leaders taking part in a transformational leadership training program. Questionnaire measures of leaders’ self-efficacy, positive affect, perspective taking, and transformational leadership behavior were obtained pre- and post-training. Findings – Leaders whose self-efficacy, perspective taking and positive affect increased over the training period also reported improvements in their transformational leadership behavior. In addition, leaders whose positive affect increased were more likely to receive improved transformational leadership behavior ratings from their supervisors, team members and peers. Research limitations/implications – The study supports the proposition, derived from social cognitive theory that change in tran...

Temporal Integration of Events Within and Between the Cerebral Hemispheres

The effect of interhemispheric transmission time (IHTT) on temporal perception was investigated by comparing simultaneity thresholds under unimanual and bimanual stimulation conditions. In the unimanual conditions the tactile stimuli were delivered to the same hand and were received by the same hemisphere, but in bimanual conditions, where stimuli were delivered to different hands, interhemispheric communication was necessary in order to compare the timing of the two stimuli. Randomised order of stimulating the fingers of the hands was compared with consistent stimulation of each hand. Previous studies have used only consistent stimulation. Thirty-two undergraduate university students (16 males and 16 females) were tested. Bimanual simultaneity thresholds were significantly higher than unimanual. Previous research showing an absence of laterality effects for simultaneity judgements was confirmed, supporting a hemispheric equivalence model of temporal processing. Simultaneity thresholds were not affected by randomisation of stimulus location, indicating that expectancy effects were not responsible for the difference between bimanual and unimanual thresholds. The implication of these findings is that temporal perceptions are affected by the process of interhemispheric transmission.

Strategic Use of Employee Opinion Surveys: Using a Quasi-Linkage Approach to Model the Drivers of Organisational Effectiveness:

Traditionally, organisations use benchmarking to evaluate their employee opinion survey data. This approach is useful for identifying strengths and weaknesses in organisational performance, but it does not tell us how to bring about improvements on those indicators. Although linkage research (whereby survey data are linked with other organisational measures of performance) can provide this information, this approach is often not feasible. The ‘quasi-linkage’ approach described in this paper represents a practical compromise. We illustrate this approach using survey data collected from 1246 employees, demonstrating how it can be used to derive strategic information from employee opinion data.

A Decision Model for Targeting Social Welfare Services: A Case Study of Intensive Customer Support

This article describes a decision model designed to help the Centrelink branch of the Australian Government Department of Human Services target investments in case coordination for high-need customers. The model uses a technique called multiple criteria analysis to score the investment priority of more than 1,000 geographic regions across Australia.