Krista L. Uggerslev

Relationship Clean-Up Time: Using Meta-Analysis and Path Analysis to Clarify Relationships Among Job Satisfaction, Perceived Fairness, and Citizenship Behaviors

Although perceived fairness and job satisfaction predict organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), researchers have pondered the conceptual relationships among these constructs. Using path analysis on meta-analytically derived coefficients, the authors compared four models: full mediation (job satisfaction mediates fairness-OCB relationships), partial mediation, independent effects, and a spurious effects model (the job satisfaction—OCB relationship is spurious because perceived fairness is a common cause). The authors found greatest support for the independent effects model: Job satisfaction and different types of perceived fairness accounted for unique variance in OCB dimensions. The article discusses implications for research and practice, and offers suggestions to advance theory in this area.

Enhancing Critical Thinking by Teaching Two Distinct Approaches to Management

The authors explore the effect on students’ critical thinking of teaching only one approach to management versus teaching two approaches to management. Results from a quasiexperiment—which included a survey, interviews, and case analysis—suggest that compared with students who are taught only a conventional approach to management (which emphasizes maximizing productivity, profitability, and competitiveness), students who are taught a conventional and an alternative approach (which seeks to balance multiple forms of well-being for multiple stakeholders) exhibit enhanced critical thinking. Implications for management education are discussed.

The Happy Culture: A Theoretical, Meta-Analytic, and Empirical Review of the Relationship Between Culture and Wealth and Subjective Well-Being

Do cultural values enhance financial and subjective well-being (SWB)? Taking a multidisciplinary approach, we meta-analytically reviewed the field, found it thinly covered, and focused on individualism. In counter, we collected a broad array of individual-level data, specifically an Internet sample of 8,438 adult respondents. Individual SWB was most strongly associated with cultural values that foster relationships and social capital, which typically accounted for more unique variance in life satisfaction than an individual’s salary. At a national level, we used mean-based meta-analysis to construct a comprehensive cultural and SWB database. Results show some reversals from the individual level, particularly masculinity’s facet of achievement orientation. In all, the happy nation has low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance, but is high in femininity and individualism, and these effects are interrelated but still partially independent from political and economic institutions. In short, culture matters for individual and national well-being.

Scientific findings as big data for research synthesis: The metaBUS project

We describe the metaBUS project, a large-scale research curation effort supported by the Digging into Data Challenge. This ongoing effort involves the extraction and cu-ration of a corpus of more than one million individual research findings from organizational research. The approach involves the development of a comprehensive hierarchical taxonomy containing thousands of variables studied in the scientific space. Technological enablements allow linkages between the taxonomy and research findings fostering the development of a research finding search engine at the level of individual primary studies that allows the conduct of instant meta-analyses on virtually any relation of interest in organizational research.

The effects of personality on job satisfaction and life satisfaction: A meta-analytic investigation accounting for bandwidth–fidelity and commensurability:

To what extent do employees’ personality traits shape their perceptions of job and life satisfaction? To answer this question, we conducted the largest meta-analysis on the topic to date, summarizing a total of 12,682 correlations among combinations of personality, job satisfaction and life satisfaction. We also sought to refine previous meta-analytic estimates by comparing the effects of personality facets to broad trait domains, while controlling for commensurability of personality measures. The results showed that the Big Five personality traits accounted for about 10% of the variance in job satisfaction, which in turn accounted for 13% of the variance in life satisfaction. Compared with the broad trait domains, personality facets typically accounted for twice as much variance in life satisfaction, with only a minor increase for job satisfaction, which contradicts the typical bandwidth–fidelity heuristic. The results also provided support for a trickle-down or top-down effect, where dispositions affect perceptions of life satisfaction, which then influenced the more specific subdomain of job satisfaction. The results have important implications for researchers and practitioners, suggesting that information is lost when personality facets are overlooked, and that educational and workplace interventions could enhance perceptions of satisfaction for those prone to lower levels of subjective well-being.

A metaBUS-enabled meta-analysis of career satisfaction

Purpose In this study, the authors revisit the meta-analytic correlates of career satisfaction and demonstrate the use of metaBUS – a database repository of meta-analytic effect sizes and related information from the field of applied psychology. The purpose of this paper is to extend prior meta-analytic research on the topic of career satisfaction and compare the results from the metaBUS-enabled meta-analysis, with the results from meta-analyses that do not build on the repository. Design/methodology/approach A multilevel meta-analysis was conducted on all correlates available in the metaBUS database and the approach was described in a step-by-step fashion. Findings The demonstration reiterated some of the findings of prior meta-analyses, but also revealed considerable incongruity between the sample taken from the metaBUS database and the meta-analytic sample from studies that relied on non-metaBUS-based literature searches. Nevertheless, the results are similar in terms of the directions of the effects and the relative sizes of the effects. Research limitations/implications The paper demonstrates the use of the metaBUS database. In addition, results suggest that meta-analyses on career satisfaction might have suffered from sample selection issues, but further research is required in order to establish the source of the sample selection incongruence. Originality/value This is the first step-by-step demonstration of the use of metaBUS specifically for meta-analyses.