Yuhyung Shin

How Does Corporate Ethics Contribute to Firm Financial Performance? The Mediating Role of Collective Organizational Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Despite the increasing significance of corporate ethics, few studies have explored the intermediate mechanisms that explain the relationship between corporate ethics and firm financial performance. Drawing on institutional theory and strategic human resource management literature, the authors hypothesize that the internal collective processes based on employees’ collective organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) mediate the ethics–performance relationship at the organizational level. The authors’ hypotheses are tested using data collected from 3,821 employees from 130 Korean companies and the respective companies’ financial performance data. The results indicate that collective organizational commitment and interpersonal OCB are meaningful intervening processes that connect corporate ethics to firm financial performance. To complement prior studies that identify a firm’s reputation and external relations as mediators between corporate ethics and performance, the present study highlights the need to examine microprocesses occurring within the organization to account for the ethics–firm performance relationship. Moreover, the present demonstration of collective organizational commitment and OCB as meaningful predictors of a firm’s objective performance indicates the significance of these employee processes in explaining organizational-level outcomes.

A Person-Environment Fit Model for Virtual Organizations

While the increasing sophistication of information technology has led to the spread of virtual organizations, there has been very little research on what factors contribute to individuals’ effectiveness in such organizations. This paper argues that organizations possess different degrees of virtuality based on four dimensions of temporal, spatial, cultural, and organizational dispersion. Using a person-environment fit framework, a theoretical model that identifies individual qualities required to fit into virtual organizations, virtual teams, and virtual jobs is developed, taking into account dimensions and degrees of virtuality. Mechanisms for enhancing fit in virtual organizations as well as theoretical and practical implications of the model are addressed.

Person-Group Fit Diversity Antecedents, Proximal Outcomes, and Performance at the Group Level

This article explores antecedents and outcomes of group-level person-group (PG) fit perceptions. Based on the categorization-elaboration model (CEM), the authors explain how social category (gender and age) and informational diversity (education and work experience) in work teams may elicit supplementary and complementary fit perceptions among team members. The authors then examine two mechanisms through which perceived fit might influence leader-rated group performance. Supplementary fit (similarity on values) is hypothesized to work through a relationship-oriented mechanism by influencing social cohesion. Complementary fit (abilities meet job demands) is expected to work through a task-oriented mechanism by influencing the teams’ transactive memory systems. Participants include employees (N = 1,101) and leaders (N = 116) from 116 work teams in two private firms located in Seoul, Korea. Results generally support the hypothesized relationships, with the task-oriented mechanism being more influential of group performance. Post hoc analyses also suggest that a superordinate perception of PG fit may underlie the assessments of the more specific types of fit. The authors conclude that diversity within groups influences an emergent perception of group-level fit, having related supplementary and complementary components, which in turn are associated with group-level outcomes.

Positive Group Affect and Team Creativity Mediation of Team Reflexivity and Promotion Focus

The study explores group-level mechanisms linking positive group affective tone (PGAT) and team creativity. Drawing on Paulus and Dzindolet’s group creativity model and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, the mediating roles of team reflexivity and team promotion focus were examined. Survey data were collected from the leaders and members of 98 work teams in South Korea. Structural equation modeling results showed that when controlling for negative group affective tone, PGAT was significantly associated with team creativity. Furthermore, team reflexivity and team promotion focus fully mediated the relationship between PGAT and team creativity, and this effect held when team prevention focus was controlled for. The findings provide meaningful insights into the roles of team reflexivity and team promotion focus as critical social-cognitive and social-motivational processes in the group affect–creativity relationship.

Does Leader-Follower Regulatory Fit Matter? The Role of Regulatory Fit in Followers’ Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Due to increasing organizational demand and competition, employees’ goal-pursuit regulatory processes become pivotal to their work behavior and outcomes. Drawing on interpersonal regulatory fit theory, we proposed that leader prevention focus would moderate the relation between follower prevention focus and maintenance organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), whereas the relation between follower promotion focus and change OCB would be moderated by leader promotion focus. We tested these fit hypotheses using cross-level polynomial regression analyses conducted on 117 leader and 641 followers in South Korean firms. The results showed that followers’ prevention focus was positively associated with their maintenance OCB. This main effect was more pronounced when the leader’s prevention focus was high than when it was low. While we detected a significant main effect of follower promotion focus on change OCB, no fit effect was found for promotion focus. The implications of these findings as well as directions for future research are addressed.

Does Team Culture Matter? Roles of Team Culture and Collective Regulatory Focus in Team Task and Creative Performance

Despite the vast amount of research on the antecedents of team performance, the role of subcultures in team contexts has only received scant attention. This study investigates the relationships between different types of team culture and team performance. Team-level analyses conducted on the leaders and members of 104 teams revealed a significant association between internal process team culture and team task performance, as well as a marginally significant relationship between human relations team culture and team task performance. Furthermore, team prevention focus mediated the relationships between internal process and human relations team cultures and team task performance. Team promotion focus mediated the relationship between open system team culture and team creative performance. These findings offer new insights regarding team culture, collective regulatory focus, and team performance.

Coworker support as a double-edged sword: a moderated mediation model of job crafting, work engagement, and job performance

Abstract This research aims to test the mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between job crafting and job performance, as well as the moderating effects of two forms of coworker support on the job crafting–work engagement relationship. We collected survey-based data from two South Korean samples. Study 1 was conducted on 175 flight attendants. The results of Study 1 were then replicated in Study 2 wherein 181 hotel employees reported their own job crafting and work engagement, and their supervisors rated their job performance one month later. In both studies, work engagement fully mediated the relationship between job crafting and job performance. The positive association between job crafting and work engagement was more pronounced when coworker emotional support was high than when it was low. In contrast, the positive link between job crafting and work engagement was stronger when coworker instrumental support was low than when it was high. Coworker emotional and instrumental support further moderated the indirect effect of job crafting on job performance through work engagement.

Organizational virtuousness perceptions and task crafting

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between employees’ perceptions of organizational virtuousness and task crafting, and to test the mediating roles of organizational identification and work engagement in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected questionnaires from 175 Korean flight attendants and conducted structural equation modeling analyses. Findings Employees’ perceptions of organizational virtuousness were positively associated with task crafting. While organizational identification was not solely responsible for mediating this relationship, it intervened in the relationship between organizational virtuousness perceptions and task crafting by affecting work engagement. Research limitations/implications While this study provides important insights into the roles of organizational virtuousness, organizational identification, and work engagement in promoting task crafting, the use of self-reported, cross-sectional data limits causal inferences between variables. Practical implications Based on the present findings, managers can better understand the antecedents and mediating processes affecting employees’ task crafting. Originality/value This study adds value to the positive organizational psychology literature by revealing crucial intermediary processes linking organizational virtuousness perceptions and task crafting, thus suggesting reciprocity and social identity-based motivation as potential underlying mechanisms of task crafting.

Can Misfit Be a Motivator of Helping and Voice Behaviors? Role of Leader–Follower Complementary Fit in Helping and Voice Behaviors

This study explores the role of leader–follower complementary fit in predicting followers’ helping and voice behaviors. We collected survey-based data from 645 employees in 119 South Korean teams and performed cross-level polynomial regression analyses and response surface tests. The cross-level polynomial regression analyses and post hoc analyses generally endorsed complementary fit effects, such that the levels of helping and voice behaviors were higher when promotion-focused followers interacted with less transformational leaders and when less promotion-focused followers interacted with transformational leaders. On the contrary, we detected a supplementary fit effect for prevention focus. More precisely, followers’ helping behavior was more pronounced when their prevention focus was similar to the level of transactional leadership than where there was a mismatch between the two. These findings provide a nuanced perspective for understanding the differential roles of complementary and supplementary fit between transformational and transactional leadership and follower regulatory focus in predicting helping and voice behaviors.