Daniel S. Whitman

Fairness at the collective level: a meta-analytic examination of the consequences and boundary conditions of organizational justice climate.

This article uses meta-analytic methods (k = 38) to examine the relationship between organizational justice climate and unit-level effectiveness. Overall, our results suggest that the relationship between justice and effectiveness is significant (ρ = .40) when both constructs are construed at the collective level. Our results also indicate that distributive justice climate was most strongly linked with unit-level performance (e.g., productivity, customer satisfaction), whereas interactional justice was most strongly related to unit-level processes (e.g., organizational citizenship behavior, cohesion). We also show that a number of factors moderate this relationship, including justice climate strength, the level of referent in the justice measure, the hierarchical level of the unit, and how criteria are classified. We elaborate on these findings and attempt to provide a clearer direction for future research in this area.

An empirical investigation of dispositional antecedents and performance-related outcomes of credit scores.

Many organizations use credit scores as an employment screening tool, but little is known about the legitimacy of such practices. To address this important gap, the reported research conceptualized credit scores as a biographical measure of financial responsibility and investigated dispositional antecedents and performance-related outcomes. Using personality data collected from employees, objective credit scores obtained from the Fair Isaac Corporation, and performance data provided by supervisors, we found conscientiousness to be positively related and agreeableness to be negatively related to credit scores. Results also indicate significant relationships between credit scores and task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. Credit scores did not, however, predict workplace deviance. Implications for organizations currently using or planning to use credit scores as part of the screening process are discussed.

The Relationship Between Typical and Maximum Performance: A Meta-Analytic Examination

This studys purpose was to meta-analytically estimate the magnitude of the relationship between typical and maximum job performance to determine if this distinction deserves greater attention. We also tested several moderators including three associated with the temporal boundaries of this relationship and examined theoretical antecedents of typical and maximum performance (ability, motivation, and personality). This meta-analysis revealed a moderate typical–maximum performance association (ρ = .42), suggesting that a meaningful distinction does exist. Although the examined temporal moderators did not meaningfully affect the typical–maximum performance relationship, task complexity, type of performance measure, and study setting were significant moderators. Antecedent analyses confirmed that both ability and Openness to Experience are more strongly related to maximum than typical performance. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Almighty Dollar or Root of All Evil? Testing the Effects of Money on Workplace Behavior

Across cultures, the idea of money has dual positive and negative connotations. Consistent with this notion of duality, money-priming theory posits that the salience of money makes individuals work harder for themselves while also reducing the concern they have for others. Although research has tended to support these expectations, it has almost exclusively done so using between-persons designs in controlled lab settings. To address these limitations in the literature, we used a within-persons design in two work settings to test individual behavior change as a function of the salience of money. We did so using two samples of professional athletes and tested the extent to which priming individual pay affected both self-serving and cooperative behaviors. We operationalized the money prime in these samples as the final year of individuals’ employment contracts—a time when money is made particularly salient relative to surrounding years. Consistent with money-priming theory, within-persons analyses using a sample of basketball players from the National Basketball Association revealed that self-serving behaviors significantly increased in the final contract year relative to surrounding years. However, we did not find that cooperative behaviors decreased during the final contract year. This pattern of results was replicated using a sample of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League. These findings cumulatively suggest that although the salience of money is associated with increases in self-serving behaviors, it is not adversely associated with cooperation or team success.

The Incremental Validity of Honesty-Humility over Cognitive Ability and the Big Five Personality Traits

The present study examines the incremental validity of Honesty–Humility (H-H), a measure of the tendency to be fair and genuine in dealing with others, for supervisory ratings of job performance (including both task and contextual performance) over cognitive ability and the Big Five personality traits. Specifically, we explore the incremental validity of H-H in predicting contextual performance. Results based on 217 South Korean military officer candidates are consistent with previous conclusions that Conscientiousness is the strongest predictor of contextual performance and that cognitive ability is the strongest predictor of task performance. More important, our results reveal that H-H offers moderate incremental validity for contextual performance but no incremental validity for task performance over the effects of cognitive ability and the Big Five personality traits.

Emotional Intelligence Among Black and White Job Applicants: Examining Differences in Test Performance and Test Reactions

The present work examines applicant reactions to a test of emotional intelligence (EI) using an organizational sample of 334 job applicants. Results indicated that Blacks had higher face validity and opportunity to perform perceptions of EI than Whites, but that Whites performed significantly better than Blacks on the EI test. Although exploratory analyses revealed that test performance was positively related to test reactions, we also found that the magnitude of this relationship differed between Blacks and Whites for opportunity to perform perceptions. We discuss our findings by offering practical advice for organizations considering or using a measure of EI for selection and assessment.