Stephanie C. Payne

A meta-analytic examination of the goal orientation nomological net

The authors present an empirical review of the literature concerning trait and state goal orientation (GO). Three dimensions of GO were examined: learning, prove performance, and avoid performance along with presumed antecedents and proximal and distal consequences of these dimensions. Antecedent variables included cognitive ability, implicit theory of intelligence, need for achievement, self-esteem, general self-efficacy, and the Big Five personality characteristics. Proximal consequences included state GO, task-specific self-efficacy, self-set goal level, learning strategies, feedback seeking, and state anxiety. Distal consequences included learning, academic performance, task performance, and job performance. Generally speaking, learning GO was positively correlated, avoid performance GO was negatively correlated, and prove performance GO was uncorrelated with these variables. Consistent with theory, state GO tended to have stronger relationships with the distal consequences than did trait GO. Finally, using a meta-correlation matrix, the authors found that trait GO predicted job performance above and beyond cognitive ability and personality. These results demonstrate the value of GO to organizational researchers.

Safety climate and injuries: an examination of theoretical and empirical relationships.

Our purpose in this study was to meta-analytically address several theoretical and empirical issues regarding the relationships between safety climate and injuries. First, we distinguished between extant safety climate-->injury and injury-->safety climate relationships for both organizational and psychological safety climates. Second, we examined several potential moderators of these relationships. Meta-analyses revealed that injuries were more predictive of organizational safety climate than safety climate was predictive of injuries. Additionally, the injury-->safety climate relationship was stronger for organizational climate than for psychological climate. Moderator analyses revealed that the degree of content contamination in safety climate measures inflated effects, whereas measurement deficiency attenuated effects. Additionally, moderator analyses showed that as the time period over which injuries were assessed lengthened, the safety climate-->injury relationship was attenuated. Supplemental meta-analyses of specific safety climate dimensions also revealed that perceived management commitment to safety is the most robust predictor of occupational injuries. Contrary to expectations, the operationalization of injuries did not meaningfully moderate safety climate-injury relationships. Implications and recommendations for future research and practice are discussed.

Effects of service provider attitudes and employment status on citizenship behaviors and customers' attitudes and loyalty behavior.

The relationship among job satisfaction, affective commitment, service-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty were examined for a sample of 249 hairstylists and 1 of their corresponding customers. Employee satisfaction was positively related to service-oriented OCBs, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty, whereas affective commitment was not related to these outcomes. The extent to which the predictor variables interacted with one another and the role of employment status on these relationships was also explored. High levels of job satisfaction or affective commitment resulted in more service-oriented OCBs for employees and self-employed workers, whereas high levels of both resulted in more service-oriented OCBs for owners.

The impact of error training and individual differences on training outcomes: An attribute-treatment interaction perspective

The authors examined the effectiveness of error training for trainees with different levels of cognitive ability, openness to experience, or conscientiousness. Participants (N = 181) were randomly assigned to control, error-encouragement, or error-avoidance conditions and trained to perform a decision-making simulation. Declarative knowledge, task performance, and self-efficacy were measured posttraining. Findings suggest the effectiveness of error training is dependent on the cognitive ability or dispositional traits of trainees. High cognitive ability or more open individuals benefit more from error-encouragement training than low cognitive ability or less open individuals. Conscientiousness has a negative effect on self-efficacy when trainees are encouraged to make errors.

Changes in newcomer job satisfaction over time: examining the pattern of honeymoons and hangovers.

In this study, the authors contribute insight into the temporal nature of work attitudes, examining how job satisfaction changes across the 1st year of employment for a sample of organizational newcomers. The authors examined factors related to job change (i.e., voluntary turnover, prior job satisfaction) and newcomer experiences (i.e., fulfillment of commitments, extent of socialization) that may strengthen or weaken the job satisfaction pattern. Results of a study of 132 newcomers with data collected at 4 unique time periods show a complex curvilinear pattern of job satisfaction, such that satisfaction reached a peak following organizational entry and decreased thereafter. However, examination of moderating factors revealed that individuals who reported less satisfaction with their prior job and those having more positive experiences on the new job, such as greater fulfilled commitments and a higher degree of socialization, were most likely to experience this pattern. Findings from this study offer important implications for theory and research on changes in newcomer attitudes over time as well as practical insight on key factors that shape the pattern of job attitudes as individuals enter and experience a new workplace.

Enhancing Team Mental Model Measurement with Performance Appraisal Practices

Little dispute exists with regard to the conceptual and practical contributions of team mental models (TMMs) to team-related research and applications, yet the measurement of TMMs poses great challenges for researchers and practitioners. Borrowing from performance appraisal practices, this article presents a new method for assessing TMMs that is user-friendly and allows for the measurement of both TMM accuracy and similarity. The extent to which TMM similarity and accuracy indices predict team performance in a field setting is examined. Contributions to team research and practice are discussed.

Simultaneous Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Efficacy Beliefs at Multiple Levels of Analysis

Theoretical models have assumed that efficacy beliefs operate similarly (i.e., are homologous) across levels of analysis (e.g., Lindsley, Brass, & Thomas, 1995), yet limited empirical support exists to confirm this supposition. This research empirically tested a multilevel model to determine if individual-level and team-level relations involving experience, achievement motivation, efficacy beliefs, and performance are in fact homologous across levels. Members of action teams in both lab and field settings completed measures assessing individual differences and efficacy beliefs. Subsequent ratings of individual performance and objective team performance were obtained following multiple performance episodes. Results revealed both similarities and dissimilarities between individual-level and team-level antecedents and consequences of efficacy beliefs, suggesting the assumption of homology in models of efficacy beliefs should be revisited. Contributions and implications to efficacy research and other multilevel research are discussed.

Beyond the Big Five: Leader Goal Orientation as a Predictor of Leadership Effectiveness

This study examined proximal traits as mediators of the relationships between distal traits and leadership effectiveness. Specifically, we examined goal orientation, leadership self-efficacy, and motivation to lead (MTL) as antecedents of leadership effectiveness, after controlling for the Big Five personality traits. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 100 leaders of four-person teams performing a manufacturing task in a laboratory setting. Consistent with expectation, leadership self-efficacy partially mediated the relationships between learning goal orientation and Affective-Identity MTL as well as Social-Normative MTL, after controlling for the Big Five. Noncalculative MTL related significantly to averaged team member ratings of leadership effectiveness, after controlling for both the leaders and the team members personality. These results help aid in our understanding of why leader traits relate to leadership effectiveness.

Personality Predictors of Extreme Response Style

Extreme response style (ERS) refers to the tendency to overuse the endpoints of Likert-type scales. This study examined the extent to which ERS is accounted for by measures of personality, specifically, intolerance of ambiguity, simplistic thinking, and decisiveness. One hundred and sixteen pairs of undergraduate students and one of their respective peers completed a battery of questionnaires assessing these personality measures, alongside three measures of extreme responding. Results indicate that peer ratings of intolerance of ambiguity and simplistic thinking interact with the primary participants time spent on the survey to predict the primary participants extreme responding. Thus, those who quickly complete surveys and are intolerant of ambiguity or are simplistic thinkers are most likely to exhibit ERS. These results have implications not only for surveys using rating scales, but also illustrate how epistemic personality factors more generally influence the processing of new information.

Comparison of online and traditional performance appraisal systems

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare employee reactions to the use of an online performance appraisal (PA) system to the traditional paper‐and‐pencil (P&P) approach.Design/methodology/approach – A quasi‐experimental study is conducted comparing the reactions of a group of 83 employees evaluate with a traditional P&P PA instrument to the reactions of a group of 152 employees evaluated with an online version of the same assessment tool.Findings – Employees rate with the online version reported significantly higher levels of rater accountability and employee participation than employees rate with the traditional instrument. They report no difference in perceived security of the ratings, utility of the ratings, or satisfaction with the PA. Online employees report significantly lower levels of quality for the PA ratings than traditional employees.Research limitations/implications – The paper is limited to employees in one organization and the variables examined. In the future, researchers should e...