Scott B. Dust

Ethical leadership, moral equity judgments, and discretionary workplace behavior

The current study examines the role of ethical cognition as a psychological mechanism linking ethical leadership to employee engagement in specific discretionary workplace behaviors. Hypotheses are developed proposing that ethical leadership is associated with employees’ negative moral equity judgments of workplace deviance (a discretionary antisocial behavior) and positive moral equity judgments of organizational citizenship (a discretionary prosocial behavior). In addition, hypotheses propose that moral equity judgments are a key type of ethical cognition linking ethical leadership with employee behaviors. Hypotheses are tested in a cross-organizational sample of 190 supervisor–employee dyads. Results indicate that employees who work for ethical leaders tended to judge acts of workplace deviance as morally inequitable and acts of organizational citizenship as morally equitable. In turn, these judgments guided employee regulation of behavior, and mediated the relationships between ethical leadership and employee avoidance of antisocial conduct and engagement in prosocial behavior.

Hostile climate, abusive supervision, and employee coping: does conscientiousness matter?

The current study draws on the transactional theory of stress to propose that employees cope with hostile work environments by engaging in emotion-based coping in the forms of organization-directed deviance and psychological withdrawal. Specifically, we propose that supervisors hostile organizational climate perceptions act as distal environmental stressors that are partially transmitted through supervisors abusive actions and that conscientiousness moderates the proposed effects. First, we hypothesize that supervisor conscientiousness has a buffering effect by decreasing the likelihood of abusive supervision. Second, we hypothesize that highly conscientious employees cope differently from less conscientious employees. Among a sample of employees and their immediate supervisors, results indicated that while hostile climate perceptions provide a breeding ground for destructive behaviors, conscientious individuals are less likely to respond to perceived hostility with hostile acts. As supervisor conscientious levels increased, supervisors were less likely to engage in abusive supervision, which buffered employees from the negative effects of hostile climate perceptions. However, when working for less conscientious supervisors, employees experienced the effects of perceived hostile climates indirectly through abusive supervision. In turn, less conscientious employees tended to cope with the stress of hostile environments transmitted through abusive supervision by engaging in acts of organization-directed deviance. At the same time, all employees, regardless of their levels of conscientiousness, tended to cope with their hostile environments by psychologically withdrawing. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Multi-Leader Teams in Review: A Contingent-Configuration Perspective of Effectiveness

Multi-leader teams are characterized by multiple leaders exhibiting mutual influence on each other while working towards a common team goal. An unexplored assumption in this literature is that increasing the number of leaders is related to heightened team effectiveness. The authors propose that this notion is oversimplified and suggest a contingency model of multi-leader team effectiveness. The authors suggest that the context determines the effectiveness of a particular multi-leader team configuration, because each formation has unique internal team mechanisms. To investigate this perspective, we review the multi-leader team literature (175 articles) by categorizing the extant theory and research as falling within nine multi-leader configurations along two key dimensions: (1) the proportion of leaders within a team; and (2) the dispersion of leadership through role co-enactment of team leaders. This framework enables a more coherent understanding as to the benefits and the costs of each specific multi-leader team configuration and a clearer evaluation of the contexts in which varying configurations are most effective. Four emerging themes related to configuration–contextualization are explained and theoretical implications for interpreting leadership effectiveness in multi-leader team settings are discussed.

Supervisor-Employee Power Distance Incompatibility, Gender Similarity, and Relationship Conflict: A Test of Interpersonal Interaction Theory.

According to interpersonal interaction theory, relational harmony surfaces when two individuals have compatible interaction styles. Building from this theory, we propose that supervisor-employee power distance orientation incompatibility will be related to employees’ experience of higher levels of relationship conflict with their supervisors. Additionally, we propose an asymmetrical incongruence effect such that relationship conflict will be highest when supervisors are high in power distance and employees are low in power distance. Furthermore, we address calls in interpersonal interaction research for more direct attention to the social context of the dyadic interaction and explore the moderating effects of supervisor-employee gender (dis)similarity on the relationship between this incompatibility and conflict. We propose that supervisor-employee gender dissimilarity (e.g., male-female or female-male pairs) acts as a conditional moderator, neutralizing the power distance incongruence effect and the asymmetrical incongruence effect. Using 259 supervisor-employee dyads in the physical therapy industry, the hypotheses were generally supported. Theoretical and practical implications regarding the unique benefits of power distance compatibility and gender diversity in supervisor-employee dyads are discussed.

Mindful multitasking: Disentangling the effect of polychronicity on work–home conflict and life satisfaction

ABSTRACT This study seeks to disentangle the effect of polychronicity on work–home conflict, home–work conflict, and life satisfaction, by evaluating mindfulness as a moderator. We propose that mindfulness moderates the relationship between polychronicity and work–home and home–work conflict such that the relationship will be negative when mindfulness is high and positive when mindfulness is low. Additionally, we propose that mindfulness moderates the relationship between polychronicity and life satisfaction such that the relationship will be positive when mindfulness is high and negative when mindfulness is low. A total of 138 academics throughout India completed measures of polychronicity, mindfulness, life satisfaction, and work-to-home and home-to-work conflict scales. The moderation findings illustrate that higher levels of mindfulness enhance the effects of polychronicity.

I’m Too Old for This: Time Demands and Older, Early-Career Employees’ Receptivity to Supervisor Support

This study explores how age and career stage affect receptivity to supervisor support using a multi-wave field sample of 528 employees. Following conservation of resources theory, we suggest that for early-career employees, supervisor support will more strongly mitigate the negative relationship between time demands and satisfaction with work–family balance and career satisfaction. We argue, however, that prior research overlooks a demographic with unique resource valuations: older, early-career employees. We therefore hypothesize and test two-way and three-way interactions of time demands, supervisor support, and career stage on satisfaction with work–family balance and career satisfaction. Our findings illustrate that early-stage employees were more receptive to the buffering impact of supervisor support. Additionally, for early-career employees, older employees compared to younger employees were more receptive to the buffering impact of supervisor support with regard to satisfaction with work–family balance and less receptive with regard to career satisfaction.

Dominance Incompatibility, Relationship Conflict, and Subsequent Abusive Supervision

Across two studies, we explore the configurational effects of leader and follower dominance on dyadic relationship conflict and subsequent abusive supervision. Drawing from the central tenets of so...

It’s All Relative: A Team-Based Social Comparison Model for Self-Evaluations of Effectiveness

We apply social comparison theory (SCT) to the organizational context and develop a model explicating the social comparison process that occurs within organizational teams. In doing so, we highlight how individual, team, and managerial factors influence this process. First, we discuss how task-related (e.g., functional background and experience) and demographic-related (e.g., age, gender, and race) team characteristics affect social comparison target selection (i.e., the team as a whole, a subgroup, or a specific individual) and further explain the impact of metacognitive capacities on this referent selection process. Next, we explore how team norms of collaboration versus competition affect whether employees assimilate or contrast, respectively, during social comparisons. Subsequently, we highlight how managers influence the proposed social comparison process. Finally, we discuss how social comparisons can be productive or unproductive for team members’ organization-based self-esteem (OBSE). We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our model and offering avenues for future research.