Nadin Beckmann

Mediation Testing in Management Research A Review and Proposals

The authors review and critique the conduct and reporting of mediation analyses in 409 studies published in five leading organization studies journals over the past 25 years. The aim of the study is to learn from past practice and to use that knowledge to signal to researchers the importance of correctly applying mediation tests as well as to facilitate the valid testing of mediation models and the reporting of mediation results in future studies. The authors content code their sample for a wide range of characteristics and find that the majority of inferences of full and partial mediation are based on testing procedures that deviate significantly from procedures recommended by statisticians. In addition, the reporting of results is often incomplete and inefficient. The authors discuss and evaluate the findings of the study and make recommendations for future testing and reporting of results for mediation models.

Task-Contingent Conscientiousness as a Unit of Personality at Work.

The present study examined the viability of incorporating task-contingent units into the study of personality at work, using conscientiousness as an illustrative example. We used experience-sampling data from 123 managers to show that (a) momentary conscientiousness at work is contingent on the difficulty and urgency demands of the tasks people are engaged in, (b) there are significant and stable differences between people in the extent to which their conscientiousness behaviors are contingent on task demands, and (c) individual differences in task-contingent conscientiousness are related to, though distinct from, individual differences in trait conscientiousness. We also provide evidence in relation to (a) need for cognition as a possible antecedent of task-contingent conscientiousness and (b) adaptive performance on a cognitive task as a possible consequence of it. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings for the cognitive nature of personality and the way in which conscientiousness is expressed at work. Practical implications in relation to the predictive function of personality and applications that focus on behavioral change are also discussed.

Bayesian Analysis of Individual Level Personality Dynamics

A Bayesian technique with analyses of within-person processes at the level of the individual is presented. The approach is used to examine whether the patterns of within-person responses on a 12-trial simulation task are consistent with the predictions of ITA theory (Dweck, 1999). ITA theory states that the performance of an individual with an entity theory of ability is more likely to spiral down following a failure experience than the performance of an individual with an incremental theory of ability. This is because entity theorists interpret failure experiences as evidence of a lack of ability which they believe is largely innate and therefore relatively fixed; whilst incremental theorists believe in the malleability of abilities and interpret failure experiences as evidence of more controllable factors such as poor strategy or lack of effort. The results of our analyses support ITA theory at both the within- and between-person levels of analyses and demonstrate the benefits of Bayesian techniques for the analysis of within-person processes. These include more formal specification of the theory and the ability to draw inferences about each individual, which allows for more nuanced interpretations of individuals within a personality category, such as differences in the individual probabilities of spiraling. While Bayesian techniques have many potential advantages for the analyses of processes at the level of the individual, ease of use is not one of them for psychologists trained in traditional frequentist statistical techniques.

Management humor: Asset or liability?

Should managers deliberately employ humor to persuade and motivate staff? A framework is presented for analyzing the role of humor in managerial communications. The framework includes the presenter, recipient, message, and medium and elaborates cognitive and emotional reactions to humor by recipients. The framework is applied to analyses of the likely impacts of humor in problem solving and creativity. Facilitators and constraints for the effects of humor in managerial communications are discussed.

Editorial: Dynamic Personality Science. Integrating between-Person Stability and within-Person Change

Trait theorists and social-cognitive theorists have begun to integrate their respective descriptions and explanations of personality. The new framing of personality accommodates both between-person stability and within-person variability in personality. Whilst individuals differ from each other in predictable ways—differences that can sufficiently be described by broad trait constructs such as neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, extraversion, and core self-evaluations—they also vary systematically in the ways they respond to situations they encounter and change as a person over time. An integrated framework of personality raises many interesting questions. This Research Topic aims to move forward frontiers, both conceptually and empirically, for several of those questions. We provide new evidence in support of an integrated approach to personality, highlight currently active areas of research, and propose new directions of research into why individuals think, feel, and behave the way they do.

A problem shared is learning doubled

We address the issue of underutilisation of learning opportunities in simulations.71 professionals took part in an experiment using a management simulation.Peer interactions were structured to encourage hypothesis-testing strategies.Simple manipulation of how learners interact with the simulation affected learning.Evidence for proximal, distal and deliberation learning effects is presented. Whilst micro-worlds or simulations have increasingly been used in higher education settings, students do not always benefit as expected from these learning opportunities. By using an experimental-control group design we tested the effectiveness of structuring the task environment so as to encourage learners to approach simulations more systematically. Seventy-one professionals who participated in a postgraduate-level management program worked on a management simulation either individually (n=35) or in dyads (n=36) while exploring the simulation (exploration phase). Peer interactions in the shared learning condition were structured so that learners were encouraged to employ hypothesis testing strategies. All participants then completed the simulation again individually so as to demonstrate what they had learned (performance phase). Baseline measures of cognitive ability and personality were also collected. Learners who explored the simulation in the shared learning condition outperformed their counterparts who explored the simulation individually. A simple manipulation of the way learners interacted with the simulation facilitated learning. Improved deliberation is discussed as a potential cause of this effect, preliminary evidence is provided. This study lends further evidence that the effectiveness of learning using simulations is co-determined by characteristics of the learning environment.

Educator–student communication in sex & relationship education : a comparison of teacher and peer-led interventions.

Abstract This paper presents findings from a comparative study of peer- and teacher-led Sex and Relationship Education (SRE). One lesson delivered by a peer educator, and one lesson delivered by a teacher was observed with the aim of exploring the communicative process between educators and students within SRE. It is claimed that open communication between students and peer educators promotes the adoption of positive attitudes to sexual health, making it a potential alternative to teacher-led provision. Yet to our knowledge, no studies have investigated the communicative process within peer-led adolescent health interventions to examine factors underpinning its potential efficacy. The development of a coding scheme to measure the extent to which educators and students are communicating openly within SRE is used to describe the communicative process between sex educators and students, characterise differences in communication within peer- and teacher-led conditions and discuss how these differences affect student participation in SRE. Results suggest interaction of students in the peer-led condition was different to that of students receiving teacher-led SRE; and provide valuable insight into educator–student communication in the context of classroom-based SRE.

Online Instructional Videos as a Complimentary Method of Teaching Practical Rehabilitation Skills for Groups and Individuals

Online instructional videos are becoming increasingly common within education. This study adopts a quasi-experimental 2 × 2 crossover design (control and experimental groups) to evaluate the efficacy of instructional videos to teach practical rehabilitation skills. The students performed practical sessions in class and were formatively assessed by their lecturers. The results demonstrate that the group effect was moderate with an effect size of 0.68, CI [0.04, 1.31]; the magnitude-based inferences indicate the probabilities the video was beneficial or trivial or harmful were 93.9% or 5.4% or 0.6%. The results of the study demonstrate that the instructional videos had a small to moderate beneficial effect on all assessed criteria.