Robert S. Rubin

The Milieu of Managerial Work: An Integrative Framework Linking Work Context to Role Requirements

Theoretical and empirical efforts focusing on the interplay between work context and managerial role requirements have been conspicuously absent in the scholarly literature. This paucity exists despite over 60 years of research concerning the requirements of managerial work and with the rather universal recognition that work context meaningfully shapes organizational behavior. The authors developed a theoretical model linking different types of role requirements to different forms of work context. They empirically tested this framework with a nationally representative sample of 8,633 incumbent spanning 52 managerial occupations. Findings from hierarchical linear modeling analyses demonstrated that discrete forms of context (task, social, and physical) exert significant and predictable effects on managerial role requirements.

Life Satisfaction and Student Performance

Although it seems intuitively obvious that the happy student will be a more productive student, empirical tests of that assumption are curiously sparse. We tested a model that included satisfaction...

Role Expectations as Antecedents of Citizenship and the Moderating Effects of Work Context

In this field study of 198 incumbents, we examine how facets of work context affect the relationship between employees’ role expectations and supervisor ratings of their citizenship. Building on an emerging focus in the citizenship literature, we expand the scope of role perceptions to capture employees’ beliefs about the importance of various work activities and worker attributes needed for successful role performance (i.e., role expectations). Results support the role theory framework that we develop and suggest that aspects of both the social and task context moderate the relationship between employees’ role expectations for prosocial role requirements and citizenship. Implications of these results for both theory and practice in the citizenship area are discussed, as are directions for further research.

The Academic Journal Review Process as a Framework for Student Developmental Peer Feedback

Developmental peer feedback has been suggested as a method for providing students with individual feedback critical to the learning process. However, many faculty members are reluctant to employ peer feedback citing fear of student responses, student feedback capabilities, unfamiliarity with the process, and time constraints in and outside of class. Addressing faculty concerns, this article describes a peer feedback intervention, which adapts the academic journal review process and creates mutually beneficial outcomes for both faculty and students. Students build feedback capacity while improving project quality. Faculty members share the responsibility for providing feedback while enhancing student learning.

Who is attracted to an organisation using a forced distribution performance management system

Arguments related to forced distribution systems (FDS) are often dogmatic, but typically do not consider for whom such systems might be most and least appealing. We examine the relationships between participants’ individual differences (cognitive ability, collectivism and core self-evaluations) and their attraction to an organisation utilising an FDS. From a sample of 143 advanced undergraduate students, we found that individuals were more likely to be attracted to an organisation using FDS when they possessed higher levels of cognitive ability and perceived FDS to be fairer. We also found a significant interaction between respondents’ collectivism and fairness perceptions of FDS, indicating that individuals who are high in collectivism are particularly sensitive to perceptions of FDS fairness. Implications for organisational practice and future research are discussed.

ALL FORCED RANKING SYSTEMS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL: A POLICY CAPTURING STUDY.

Few areas of management development have generated more passionate recent discourse than force-ranking performance management systems. Unfortunately, while strong and well articulated arguments hav...

The Power of Percipience: Consequences of Self-Awareness in Teams on Team-Level Functioning and Performance

We integrate research on team functioning with that of self-awareness to advance the notion of self-awareness in teams as an important concept to consider when diagnosing team effectiveness. We argue that teams composed of individuals with greater levels of self-awareness will exhibit more effective team-level functioning and performance. This proposition was explored by examining the effects of self-other agreement with regard to individual-level contributions of teamwork behavior on three team-level functional outcomes (team coordination, conflict, cohesion) and team performance. Results from 515 teams (2,658 individuals) completing a high-fidelity team-based business simulation supported the effects of aggregate levels of self-awareness on team-level functioning and performance. Moreover, these effects were influential above and beyond individual contributions themselves, highlighting the unique value of team members’ self-awareness for understanding team functioning. Of the three functional outcomes, only team conflict mediated the effects of self-awareness in teams on subsequent team-level performance. Finally, results revealed that overrating among team members was a particularly problematic form of the lack of self-awareness in teams.