Kathryn J. L. Jacobson

Workplace bullying across cultures A research agenda

Workplace bullying has increasingly become of interest to scholars and practicing managers due to its creation of dysfunctional intraorganizational conflict and its negative effects on employees and the workplace. Although studies have explored bullying in different cultural contexts, little research exists that provides a comparison of bullying behaviors across cultural dimensions. This article describes a new research agenda that analyzes the impact of specific cultural dimensions—assertiveness, in-group collectivism, and power distance—on organizational bullying. An expanded categorization of bullying prevalence and form is also proposed, with implications for both future research and organizational practice provided.

A multilevel systems model of leadership

This study uses a control theory to develop a multilevel systems model of leadership. The model outlines the processes that senior leaders can use to influence others across hierarchical levels of management and clarifies the mechanisms that link leadership across levels of management—goal cascading, alignment, and the bypass channel of communication. The authors discuss leadership behaviors needed to effectively influence others across a cybernetic process of leadership. Embedded within the multilevel systems model of leadership is a micro-level cybernetic model that focuses on the temporal process that leaders use to influence individuals in the pursuit of goal achievement.

Self-Control Moderates the Effectiveness of Influence Attempts Highlighting Injunctive Social Norms

Across three experiments involving different target behaviors, the trait of impulsivity reduced the effectiveness of persuasive messages framed using injunctive norms. In two of the three experiments, the trait of impulse restraint heightened the effectiveness of these same injunctive norm messages. No evidence was obtained for these traits as moderators when descriptive norms were used to frame messages or when no-norm control conditions were used. Taken together, these results are consistent with past evidence that effortful self-control processes are involved in the process of following injunctive social norms. Results also provide converging support for a theoretical perspective, suggesting that injunctive norms are associated with a specialized set of response tendencies that encourage group-oriented behavior.

Comparing immigrant and US born Hispanic business professionals

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a study comparing perceptions of discrimination for immigrant and US‐born Hispanics, focusing on Hispanic business professionals.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected via nationwide survey of over 1,500 Hispanic business professionals and analyzed via analysis of variance.Findings – No significant differences with regard to perceptions of discrimination were found, although both groups reported some level of discrimination. Immigrants had comparatively lower salaries and higher levels of Hispanic identity, yet, no differences in job satisfaction between groups were found. Post hoc analyses found that immigrants were significantly more likely to seek out mentors and US‐born Hispanics were more likely to join affinity groups at work.Practical implications – Too often, immigrants are misunderstood and mistreated in the workplace. The present study provides an examination of how immigrants might perceive these differences and potentia...

Beyond (But Including) the CEO: Diffusing Corporate Social Responsibility throughout the Organization through Social Networks

Chief Executive Officers and other organizational leaders can affect how corporate social responsibility initiatives are perceived in their organizations. However, in order to be successful with regard to promoting CSR, leaders need to have strong network competencies and to move beyond charismatic leadership. In this paper we offer a critique of charismatic leadership as it relates to CSR, posit that the intellectual stimulation brought about by transformational leadership is more important in this regard, propose that internal and networking is a leadership competence highly relevant to CSR, and emphasize the importance of working through highly credible opinion leaders in promoting CSR.

Social norm perceptions predict citizenship behaviors

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which perceptions of injunctive and descriptive norms for workplace organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) affect an individual’s frequency of performing such behaviors. The study also explores whether the effects of norm perceptions are moderated by the individual’s need to belong (NTB) to social groups. Design/methodology/approach – Hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyze data from 77 employed MBA students. Perceptions of OCB norms and NTB were assessed with an initial survey. Eight weeks later, a second survey assessed the individual frequency of OCBs. Findings – Descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and NTB independently predicted OCB frequency. Additionally, NTB moderated the effects of injunctive norm perceptions. The injunctive norm was particularly influential for employees high in NTB. Research limitations/implications – Limitations of this study include its cross-sectional nature and the possibility of common method...

The Effects of Moral Emotional Traits on Workplace Bullying Perpetration

This study investigates the role of “moral” emotional traits—guilt proneness, shame proneness, empathic concern, and perspective taking—as predictors of workplace bullying perpetration. We also test and find support for a model derived from moral emotions literature and the sociometer theory of self-esteem in which the tendency to take reparative action following interpersonal transgressions mediates the buffering effect of guilt proneness on bullying. Data were obtained from working MBA students and advanced undergraduates during 2 survey sessions, 4 to 6 weeks apart. Findings indicate that moral emotional traits may be useful to consider in personnel selection as a means to reduce workplace bullying.