Lori Francis

Divergent effects of transformational and passive leadership on employee safety.

The authors concurrently examined the impact of safety-specific transformational leadership and safety-specific passive leadership on safety outcomes. First, the authors demonstrated via confirmatory factor analysis that safety-specific transformational leadership and safety-specific passive leadership are empirically distinct constructs. Second, using hierarchical regression, the authors illustrated, contrary to a stated corollary of transformational leadership theory (B. M. Bass, 1997), that passive leadership contributes incrementally to the prediction of organizationally relevant outcomes, in this case safety-related variables, beyond transformational leadership alone. Third, further analyses via structural equation modeling showed that both transformational and passive leadership have opposite effects on safety climate and safety consciousness, and these variables, in turn, predict safety events and injuries. Implications for research and application are discussed.

Fragment memories mark the end of childhood amnesia

Adults described and dated two kinds of first remembrances: a personal event memory (the recollection of a personal episode that had occurred at some time in some place) and a memory fragment (an isolated memory moment having no event context and remembered, perhaps, as an image, a behavior, or an emotion). First fragment memories were judged to have originated substantially earlier in life than first event memories—approximately 3 1/3 years of age for first fragment memories versus roughly 4 years of age for first event memories. We conclude that the end of childhood amnesia is marked not by our earliest episodic memories, but by the earliest remembered fragments of childhood experiences.

Loving one's job: Construct development and implications for individual well-being

We introduce the construct of loving ones job as an overlooked, but potentially informative, construct for organizational research. Following both empirical findings and theoretical developments in other domains we suggest that love of the job comprises a passion for the work itself, commitment to the employing organization, and high-quality intimate relationships with coworkers. We also suggest that love of the job is a taxonic rather than a dimensional construct – one either loves their job or does not. In addition, we propose that loving your job is on the whole beneficial to individual well-being. Within this broad context, however, we suggest that loving ones job may buffer the effect of some stressors while at the same time increase vulnerability to others. These suggestions provide some initial direction for research focused on the love of ones job.

The influence of workload and civility of treatment on the perpetration of email incivility

We conducted an experiment to examine incivility perpetration in email.We manipulated workload and received civility.Participants perpetrated more incivility under high (vs. low) workload.Participants perpetrated more incivility in response to uncivil (vs. civil) emails.The most incivility was seen in responses to uncivil emails under high workload. The consequences of experienced incivility at work are well documented. However, less is known about causal factors of incivility. Using an experimental design, we investigated the causal effects of workload (high vs. low) and civility of initial treatment (civil vs. uncivil) on the perpetration of incivility in emails. Given the prevalence of e-mail as a form of communication in office environments, and the high possibility of misattributions of sender intent through this medium, it is important to understand how incivility might manifest and be perpetrated through email. Our outcome measure of interest was independently-rated civility of response emails. We expected participants to respond with more incivility to uncivil (vs. civil) stimuli; that those with high (vs. low) workloads would perpetrate more incivility; and that high workload would exacerbate the effect of received civility on the incivility of email responses. All of our hypotheses were supported. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Third-party support for strike action.

Labor strikes are often seen as battles for public support. Members of the public are asked to show respect for a strike by refusing to cross the picket line or by joining strikers on the picket line. Such public support may affect the morale of strikers and influence the strikes duration. Despite the perceived importance of the public in labor disputes, members of third parties have not been considered in previous strike research. In 2 studies, the authors show that a new measure of third-party strike support is unidimensional and highly reliable. In both cases, union attitudes and perceptions of distributive justice were significant predictors of support for strike action. Those who are more supportive of unions in general and believe that the contract offered to the strikers was unfair were more likely to support the strike by engaging in such actions as conversing with strikers, writing letters, and refusing to cross the picket line.

The stress (of an) epidemic.

We examined the consequences of being exposed to an outbreak of the Norwalk virus at a small university. Data from 422 undergraduates supported a model in which the experience of symptoms and perceptions of the universitys response to the outbreak predicted fear of future contamination. In turn, fear predicted strain and enhanced hygiene practices. Results are consistent with a model of disease outbreak as a traumatic stressor, and implications for organizations dealing with disease outbreaks are discussed.