Michael S. Christian

Workplace safety: a meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation factors.

Recent conceptual and methodological advances in behavioral safety research afford an opportunity to integrate past and recent research findings. Building on theoretical models of worker performance and work climate, this study quantitatively integrates the safety literature by meta-analytically examining person- and situation-based antecedents of safety performance behaviors and safety outcomes (i.e., accidents and injuries). As anticipated, safety knowledge and safety motivation were most strongly related to safety performance behaviors, closely followed by psychological safety climate and group safety climate. With regard to accidents and injuries, however, group safety climate had the strongest association. In addition, tests of a meta-analytic path model provided support for the theoretical model that guided this overall investigation. The implications of these findings for advancing the study and management of workplace safety are discussed.

Motivating interdependent teams: individual rewards, shared rewards, or something in between?

The primary purpose in this study was to extend theory and research regarding the motivational process in teams by examining the effects of hybrid rewards on team performance. Further, to better understand the underlying team level mechanisms, the authors examined whether the hypothesized benefits of hybrid over shared and individual rewards were due to increased information allocation and reduced social loafing. Results from 90 teams working on a command-and-control simulation supported the hypotheses. Hybrid rewards led to higher levels of team performance than did individual and shared rewards; these effects were due to improvements in information allocation and reductions in social loafing.

The slippery slope: how small ethical transgressions pave the way for larger future transgressions.

Many recent corporate scandals have been described as resulting from a slippery slope in which a series of small infractions gradually increased over time (e.g., McLean & Elkind, 2003). However, behavioral ethics research has rarely considered how unethical behavior unfolds over time. In this study, we draw on theories of self-regulation to examine whether individuals engage in a slippery slope of increasingly unethical behavior. First, we extend Banduras (1991, 1999) social-cognitive theory by demonstrating how the mechanism of moral disengagement can reduce ethicality over a series of gradually increasing indiscretions. Second, we draw from recent research connecting regulatory focus theory and behavioral ethics (Gino & Margolis, 2011) to demonstrate that inducing a prevention focus moderates this mediated relationship by reducing ones propensity to slide down the slippery slope. We find support for the developed model across 4 multiround studies.

Assumptions of Cross-Level Measurement and Structural Invariance in the Analysis of Multilevel Data: Problems and Solutions

This article demonstrates assumptions of invariance that researchers often implicitly make when analyzing multilevel data. The first set of assumptions is measurementbased and corresponds to the fact that researchers often conduct single-level exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and reliability analyses, with multilevel data. The second assumption, that of structural invariance, is engineered into the common multilevel random coefficient model, in that such analyses impose structural invariance across multiple levels of analysis when lower-level relationships represent both between- and within-groups effects. The nature of these assumptions, and ways to address their tenability, are explored from a conceptual standpoint. Then an empirical example of these assumptions and ways to address them is provided.

Mindfulness buffers retaliatory responses to injustice: A regulatory approach.

We investigate the role of mindfulness as a regulatory factor by examining whether it mitigates the relationship between justice and retaliation. Drawing on theories of self-regulation, we integrate work on justice with emerging frameworks that identify mindfulness as an important work-related regulatory variable (Glomb, Duffy, Bono, & Yang, 2011). Specifically, we identify the role of mindfulness as a buffer of the ruminative thoughts and negative emotions that link injustice to retaliation. We test mediated moderation hypotheses in 2 samples. In Sample 1, two behavioral measures of retaliation are assessed in an experiment that manipulated both injustice and mindfulness. In Sample 2, we generalize our model to the field, examining employee responses regarding experiences with workplace injustice and retaliation. Results of both studies converge to support the proposed mediated moderation model that mindfulness buffers the effect of injustice on rumination and negative emotions, thus reducing retaliation. Our findings contribute to the broader literatures on self-regulation, organizational justice, and retaliation.

Building a self-regulatory model of sleep deprivation and deception: the role of caffeine and social influence.

Employees are getting less sleep, which has been shown to deplete self-regulatory resources and increase unethical behavior (Barnes, Schaubroeck, Huth, & Ghumman, 2011; Christian & Ellis, 2011). In this study, we extend the original mediated model by examining the role of 2 moderators in the relationship between sleep deprivation, depletion, and deceptive behavior. First, we derive psychological arguments from the psychopharmacology literature to hypothesize that caffeine moderates the relationship between sleep deprivation and depletion by replenishing self-regulatory resources. Second, we draw from recent research in social psychology to hypothesize that social influence moderates the relationship between depletion and deceptive behavior, such that depleted individuals are less able to resist the negative influence of others. Results of a laboratory study provide support for our expanded model combining mediation and moderation, adding to our understanding of the role of sleep deprivation in the incidence of workplace deception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Change the Referent? A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Direct and Referent-Shift Consensus Models for Organizational Climate

Based on earlier taxonomies of group composition models, aggregating data from individual-level responses to operationalize group-level constructs is a common aspect of management research. The present study contributes to the literature on group composition models by quantitatively integrating the climate literature via meta-analysis to determine which of the two most common methods of aggregation, direct consensus and referent-shift consensus, is the stronger predictor of group-level outcomes. We found that referent-shift consensus was a stronger predictor of job performance and customer service performance than direct consensus. However, we found that direct consensus was a stronger predictor of job attitudes than referent-shift consensus. We also found that climate-performance relationships were moderated by aggregation method of the performance criterion. The implications of these findings for advancing multi-level theory and research are discussed.

Determining the predictors of innovation implementation in healthcare: A quantitative analysis of implementation effectiveness

BackgroundThe failure rates for implementing complex innovations in healthcare organizations are high. Estimates range from 30% to 90% depending on the scope of the organizational change involved, the definition of failure, and the criteria to judge it. The innovation implementation framework offers a promising approach to examine the organizational factors that determine effective implementation. To date, the utility of this framework in a healthcare setting has been limited to qualitative studies and/or group level analyses. Therefore, the goal of this study was to quantitatively examine this framework among individual participants in the National Cancer Institute’s Community Clinical Oncology Program using structural equation modeling.MethodsWe examined the innovation implementation framework using structural equation modeling (SEM) among 481 physician participants in the National Cancer Institute’s Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP). The data sources included the CCOP Annual Progress Reports, surveys of CCOP physician participants and administrators, and the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile.ResultsOverall the final model fit well. Our results demonstrated that not only did perceptions of implementation climate have a statistically significant direct effect on implementation effectiveness, but physicians’ perceptions of implementation climate also mediated the relationship between organizational implementation policies and practices (IPP) and enrollment (p <0.05). In addition, physician factors such as CCOP PI status, age, radiological oncologists, and non-oncologist specialists significantly influenced enrollment as well as CCOP organizational size and structure, which had indirect effects on implementation effectiveness through IPP and implementation climate.ConclusionsOverall, our results quantitatively confirmed the main relationship postulated in the innovation implementation framework between IPP, implementation climate, and implementation effectiveness among individual physicians. This finding is important, as although the model has been discussed within healthcare organizations before, the studies have been predominately qualitative in nature and/or at the organizational level. In addition, our findings have practical applications. Managers looking to increase implementation effectiveness of an innovation should focus on creating an environment that physicians perceive as encouraging implementation. In addition, managers should consider instituting specific organizational IPP aimed at increasing positive perceptions of implementation climate. For example, IPP should include specific expectations, support, and rewards for innovation use.

Gendered Influence: A Gender Role Perspective on the Use and Effectiveness of Influence Tactics

The current study meta-analytically examined the gendered nature of lateral and upward influence attempts. Drawing from gender role theory, we investigated the extent to which the gender of the influence actor affected the use and effectiveness of influence behaviors. The role of a gendered environmental context was also examined. The results provided limited support of gender role theory such that men were more likely to use agentic influence tactics and women were more likely to receive personal advancement outcomes when they used communal influence tactics. Overall, the current work suggests that influence tactics may be gendered in nature such that there may be gender differences in the frequency of use and subsequent outcomes thereof. Recommendations for future research on influence include increased attention to the potentially gendered nature of influence behaviors as well as more explicit considerations of the impact of gender and gendered environment on influence effectiveness.

Dynamic Associations among Somatic Complaints, Human Energy, and Discretionary Behaviors: Experiences with Pain Fluctuations at Work

Using data from two experience-sampling studies, this paper investigates the dynamic relationships between discretionary behaviors at work—voluntary tasks that employees perform—and internal somatic complaints, focusing specifically on a person’s pain fluctuations. Integrating theories of human energy with evidence from the organizational, psychological, and medical sciences, we argue that pain both depletes and redirects the allocation of employees’ energy. We hypothesize that somatic pain is associated with depleted resources and lowered work engagement, which in turn are related to ebbs and flows in discretionary behaviors, but that people will habituate to the negative effects of pain over time. Data from the two studies largely support our hypotheses. Study 1 explores the daily experiences of a sample of office workers with chronic pain, while Study 2 extends the findings to a larger non-clinical population and examines the effect of momentary pain during the workday. Our results suggest that pain fluctuations, through their effects on two forms of human energy, potential and in-use energy, are associated with increased withdrawal and a decrease in proactive extra-role behaviors at work. The results also suggest that employees who have experienced chronic pain for a longer time are less affected by the normally depleting effects of pain.