Terry A. Beehr

Workplace harassment from the Victim's perspective : A theoretical model and meta-analysis

Although workplace harassment affects the lives of many employees, until recently it has been relatively ignored in the organizational psychology literature. First, the authors introduced an attribution- and reciprocity-based model that explains the link between harassment and its potential causes and consequences. The authors then conducted a meta-analysis to examine the potential antecedents and consequences of workplace harassment. As shown by the meta-analysis, both environmental and individual difference factors potentially contributed to harassment and harassment was negatively related to the well-being of both individual employees and their employing organizations. Furthermore, harassment contributed to the variance in many outcomes, even after controlling for 2 of the most commonly studied occupational stressors, role ambiguity and role conflict.

A meta-analysis of relations between person–organization fit and work attitudes

Abstract This article presents a meta-analytic review of 21 studies on relations of person–organization fit with job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to turnover. Four specific moderators were investigated: the type of fit measure, method of calculating fit, dimensions of fit, and use of an established measure of person–organization fit. Mean effect sizes for the outcome variables ranged from −.18 for intent to turnover to .28 for organizational commitment. Subjective fit measures, the use of correlations to calculate fit, value congruence as the fit dimension, and the use of an established measure of person–organization fit increased effect sizes. Recommendations for future research on person–organization fit are suggested.

Antecedents and Consequences of Employees’ Adjustment to Overseas Assignment: A Meta‐analytic Review

La recherche sur les antecedents et les consequences de l’ajustement des expatries a ete revue de facon qualitative et avec la methode quantitative de meta-analyse. Les predicteurs individuels, environnementaux, relies au travail et relies a la famille, de l’ajustement general, interactionnel et au travail ont ete analyses. L’efficacite personnelle, la frequence des interactions dans le pays hote, et le soutien familial ont predit les trois types d’ajustement. De plus, des competences elevees en relations interpersonnelles ont ete associees a un meilleur ajustement a l’environnement en general. Les resultats ont egalement demontre que la variable “conflit de role”etait correlee negativement avec l’ajustement au travail alors que l’ambiguite du role et la discretion ont ete associes avec l’ajustement au travail. Un modele d’equations structurelles a ete developpe avec les correlations agregees pour illustrer les relations causales possibles impliquant un facteur general d’ajustement et les resultats des tensions au travail, la satisfaction au travail, l’engagement organisationnel, l’intention de quitter, ainsi que la performance au travail. L’hypothese etait que l’ajustement influencerait les tensions et la satisfaction au travail et que ces deux dernieres variables auraient un effet sur l’engagement organisationnel, la performance et l’intention de quitter. Le modele a bien correspondu aux donnees. Research on the antecedents and consequences of expatriate adjustment was reviewed using meta-analytic methods. The antecedents and outcomes of three facets of adjustment were examined. Self-efficacy, frequency of interaction with host nationals, and family support consistently predicted all three types of adjustment. In addition, better interpersonal skills were associated with greater adjustment to general environment. Greater cultural novelty was associated with less interactional adjustment. Role conflict, ambiguity, and discretion were also strong predictors of work adjustment. A structural equations model that illustrated causal relationships involving expatriate adjustment and outcomes of job strain, job satisfaction, organisational citizenship, intent to turnover, and job performance generated a good fit with the data.

Work stressors and coworker support as predictors of individual strain and job performance

This study examined job stressors and coworker social support in relation to both psychological strains and performance. One hundred and ninety-eight door-to-door bookdealers, employed on a seasonal basis, completed self-report measures of job stressors, psychological strains, coworker social support, and job performance. Performance data were also obtained from company records. Results indicated that stressors predicted both psychological strains and one of the two measures of performance. The strongest predictor was a job-specific measure of chronic stressors. Social support predicted psychological strains, although it was only weakly related to performance. There was no evidence that social support moderated the effects of any of the stressors. Implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright

Adjustment and Strain among Domestic and International Student Sojourners A Longitudinal Study

Every year, a growing number of students leave their home environments and relocate to study at universities abroad. Relocation, however, can be a challenging and stressful experience. This longitudinal study surveyed 294 international and domestic student sojourners to examine and compare their adjustment and distress or strain responses during the first six months of their entry into a medium-sized, mid-western US state university. The findings revealed that international student sojourners, compared to domestic sojourners, had greater difficulty in adjusting during their initial transition into the university. Although sojourners experienced increasing adjustment over time, the pattern of strain was curvilinear, peaking three months after the start of the semester. Self-efficacy, social support and cultural novelty predicted adjustment and strain at different times during the transition period.

Are there gender differences in predicting retirement decisions

Although there has been speculation about gender differences in retirement decisions, research directly on the issue has been sparse, and results have been inconsistent. This study, which examined hypotheses based on traditional gender roles, is one of the few to examine the interactions between retirement predictors and gender. In a random sample of older employees and retirees from a large midwestern manufacturing organization, retirement decisions differed between men and women primarily when dependents lived in the household, when the health of ones spouse was a consideration, and when ones spouse was retired. These differences appeared to be partially dependent on the operational definition of retirement.

Working in small family businesses: empirical comparisons to non-family businesses

Members of the owning family of a small family firm are reputed to experience special problems, most notably specific types of conflicts and outcomes associated with them. This analysis uncovered more advantages than disadvantages, however, when family members were compared to non-family members of the same firms and to members of similar non-family-owned businesses. Previous literature had not used comparison groups and may have been based upon a subset of family businesses that differs systematically from family firms in general and from this studys sample specifically.

The enigma of social support and occupational stress: source congruence and gender role effects.

Research on the potential ameliorating effects of social support on occupational stress produces weak, inconsistent, and even contradictory results. This study of 117 employees, mostly from a southern U.S. hospital supply company, examined potential moderators that were theorized might reduce the confusion: source congruence (congruence between sources of the stressor and of social support) and gender role. Congruence between the sources of stressors and of social support appeared to make little difference in determining the moderating or buffering effect of social support on the relationship between stressors and strain. Gender role, however, may moderate the relationship between social support and individual stains such that more feminine people react more strongly and positively to social support than more masculine people do.

Social support, occupational stress and anxiety

When occupational stressors, that is stress-producing environmental circumstances (SPECs) in the workplace, lead to anxiety, this anxiety is considered work-related strain. Social support is frequently recommended as a treatment of such strain, because it is expected to help in one of three ways: by directly reducing the anxiety, by interacting with SPECs to reduce the strength of their effects on anxiety, and by weakening the strength of the SPECs themselves. Future research on anxiety and social support in conjunction with work-related SPECs could shed new light on the relations among these three, variables by employing one or more of three approaches: designing investigations that allow stronger causal inference, testing hypotheses derived from theory, and examining potential cross-cultural differences in the nature of and reactions to social support.

Moderating Effects of Perceived Control and Need for Clarity on the Relationship Between Role Stressors and Employee Affective Reactions

Abstract The authors examined the salience of perceived control and need for clarity as “buffers” of the adverse consequences of role stressors by using hierarchical regressions on role ambiguity and role conflict, with job satisfaction and psychological strain as the criterion variables. In a sample of U.S. and New Zealand employees, perceived control was directly associated with higher satisfaction and reduced strain but displayed no moderating effect on stressor-outcome relationships. Need for clarity, on the other hand, was a significant moderator of the relationship of role ambiguity and conflict to both satisfaction and strain; that finding suggests that researchers could give more attention to dispositional variables in examining the correlates of role stressors.