Humble leaders are traditionally thought to create a great deal of human and socialcapital, yet b... more Humble leaders are traditionally thought to create a great deal of human and socialcapital, yet be overshadowed by self-promoting rivals for promotions. We proposethat through informal career mentoring, humble leaders can improve their organiza-tional status and promotability. We tested our model among a multisource sample of610 leaders across 18 industries and 21 job functions who participated in a leaderdevelopment program. Leader humility was reported by the focal leaders' peers,leader mentoring behavior was reported by the focal leaders' direct reports, leaderstatus was reported by the focal leaders' immediate bosses, and leader promotabilitywas reported by the focal leaders' superiors. Results generally confirmed that leaderhumility predicted leader mentoring behavior, which in turn predicted leader status,and ultimately higher leader promotability ratings. We discuss how our findingsextend and enrich the literatures on leader humility and mentoring, showing howhumble leaders can ascend organizational hierarchies.
Humble leaders are traditionally thought to create a great deal of human and socialcapital, yet b... more Humble leaders are traditionally thought to create a great deal of human and socialcapital, yet be overshadowed by self-promoting rivals for promotions. We proposethat through informal career mentoring, humble leaders can improve their organiza-tional status and promotability. We tested our model among a multisource sample of610 leaders across 18 industries and 21 job functions who participated in a leaderdevelopment program. Leader humility was reported by the focal leaders' peers,leader mentoring behavior was reported by the focal leaders' direct reports, leaderstatus was reported by the focal leaders' immediate bosses, and leader promotabilitywas reported by the focal leaders' superiors. Results generally confirmed that leaderhumility predicted leader mentoring behavior, which in turn predicted leader status,and ultimately higher leader promotability ratings. We discuss how our findingsextend and enrich the literatures on leader humility and mentoring, showing howhumble leaders can ascend organizational hierarchies.
Recent meta-analytic studies imply that groups often find ways of neutralizing turnover’s harmful... more Recent meta-analytic studies imply that groups often find ways of neutralizing turnover’s harmful effects and that important moderators of the turnover–performance relationship must be missing from the literature. Building on theory and findings related to the threat–rigidity effect, we suggest that groups tend to respond maladaptively to turnover when group norms promote the idea that turnover is threatening. Specifically, we suggest that prevention climate—that is, a climate focused on minimizing mistakes and costs—largely determines the degree to which group norms encourage members to view turnover as threatening and, in turn, the degree to which groups become less adaptive and perform worse in response to turnover. Across a sample of 232 groups, we found evidence that turnover is indeed more negatively related to performance for those groups with a strong prevention climate. Further, in a controlled laboratory context where we manipulated turnover and prevention climate, we found causal evidence supporting our full conceptual model. Our work advances research on turnover by identifying an important moderator and an underlying mechanism of the turnover–performance relationship.
Across four studies, we examine how public negative labeling, which is when a group member is pub... more Across four studies, we examine how public negative labeling, which is when a group member is publicly identified as bad, affects team performance. Across three experiments and one field study, we test and find support for our model, that public negative labeling undermines team performance via reduced perceptions of team interaction quality. Our study contributes to the expansive conversation on team effectiveness which highlights that “fighting fire with fire” in terms of public negative labeling is ineffective for dealing with uncivil workplace behavior.
We suggest that employee job embeddedness and retention may lead organizations to become immobile... more We suggest that employee job embeddedness and retention may lead organizations to become immobile and unable to make important changes. We hypothesize and find that organizations with a highly immo...
We propose a theory of bad apple antecedents that emphasizes the role of labeling in the creation... more We propose a theory of bad apple antecedents that emphasizes the role of labeling in the creation of this phenomenon. Existing research on negative group members has focused on bad behavior as the antecedent to group degradation. Evidence of bad behavior producing positive results and undeserving individuals being stigmatized as bad apples have cast doubt on exactly what behaviors are negative and what constitutes a bad apple. The results of three studies provide significant evidence that the labels, not the behaviors, create bad apples and lead to the degradation of group performance. Our first study provides evidence that bad apples can be created by introducing the concept of a label. Our second study provides a link to critical group processes and our third study provides a link to group performance. Specifically, we found that introducing a bad apple label results in the creation of stigmatized bad apples which decrease group performance, mediated by a reduction in the perceived quality of team inter...
Recent meta-analytic studies imply that groups often find ways of neutralizing turnover’s harmful... more Recent meta-analytic studies imply that groups often find ways of neutralizing turnover’s harmful effects and that important moderators of the turnover–performance relationship must be missing from the literature. Building on theory and findings related to the threat–rigidity effect, we suggest that groups tend to respond maladaptively to turnover when group norms promote the idea that turnover is threatening. Specifically, we suggest that prevention climate—that is, a climate focused on minimizing mistakes and costs—largely determines the degree to which group norms encourage members to view turnover as threatening and, in turn, the degree to which groups become less adaptive and perform worse in response to turnover. Across a sample of 232 groups, we found evidence that turnover is indeed more negatively related to performance for those groups with a strong prevention climate. Further, in a controlled laboratory context where we manipulated turnover and prevention climate, we foun...
We suggest that organizational and professional identification are two sources of motivation that... more We suggest that organizational and professional identification are two sources of motivation that can be channeled in similar or different directions based on perceived organizational and professional regulatory focus. Specifically, we hypothesize and find that both types of identification-based motivation are channeled toward diagnosis behaviors when professionals think their coworkers and colleagues value a promotion focus, and they are channeled toward treatment behaviors when professionals think their coworkers and colleagues value a prevention focus. Our results advance research on social identification by helping to explain how and when organizational and professional identification influence work performance, and also advance the organizational literature on professions by introducing diagnosis and treatment as two theory-derived types of in-role performance for professional employees.
In response to recent critiques of the methods commonly used to study the psychological contract,... more In response to recent critiques of the methods commonly used to study the psychological contract, this study details and advocates the use of an experimental design within this literature. The expe...
ABSTRACT As a result of recent preventable corporate failures (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brot... more ABSTRACT As a result of recent preventable corporate failures (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae), there is a growing desire to understand what might motivate employees to courageously detect and deflect organizational problems before they harm the entire organization. Based on 94 interviews we conducted with a wide variety of employees who witnessed or undertook courageous actions, we inductively developed a model using employees’ accounts of the unfolding sequence of events. We learned that employees report engaging in courageous workplace actions when they feel responsible for dealing with a challenging situation such as a workplace error, an abuse of power, an ambiguous situation, or someone in need. We interpreted the stories of courage as suggesting that workplace courage may be a two-stage process, where actors first determine their level of personal responsibility to respond to the challenging situation and then determine the potential social costs of acting. Our model of the courageous workplace action appears to challenge the conventional wisdom of courage as being attributed to a person’s disposition, may enrich theories of intrinsic motivation, and may help clarify the role of cognition in courageous action. Our findings may also help to resolve some of the contradictory evidence regarding the antecedents of the many organizational constructs related to courage including whistle-blowing, voice, speaking up, taking charge, positive deviance, and organizational dissent.
We seek to help solve the puzzle of why top-level leaders are disproportionately White men. We su... more We seek to help solve the puzzle of why top-level leaders are disproportionately White men. We suggest that this race-and sex-based status and power gap persists, in part, because ethnic minority and female leaders are discouraged from engaging in diversityvaluing behavior. We hypothesize, and test in both field and laboratory samples, that ethnic minority or female leaders who engage in diversity-valuing behavior are penalized with worse performance ratings, whereas White or male leaders who engage in diversity-valuing behavior are not penalized for doing so. We find that this divergent effect results from traditional negative race and sex stereotypes (i.e., lower competence judgments) placed upon diversity-valuing ethnic minority and female leaders. We discuss how our findings extend and enrich the vast literatures on the glass ceiling, tokenism, and workplace discrimination. Women and non-Whites have made remarkable gains in the workplace in recent decades. Non-Whites and women outnumber White men in the U.S. workplace by a margin of two to one (Burns, Barton, & Kerby, 2012). However, a demographic status and power gap remains, as recent data show that only 25 Fortune 500 companies are headed by people of color and 21 by women (Catalyst, Inc., 2013; Diversity, Inc. staff, 2012). Likewise, corporate boards in the Fortune 500 are primarily composed of White men (74.4%), followed by White women (13.3%). Among ethnic minorities, 6.8% of corporate board members are African American, 3.1% are Latino, and 2.4% are Asian American (Zweigenhaft & Domhoff, 2011). The status and power gap between men and women persists despite meta-analytic evidence suggesting that women tend to be rated as better leaders than men (Paustian-Underdahl, Walker, & Woehr, 2014), and any performance evaluation gap that may exist fails to account for the highly visible status and power gap within organizations (Joshi, Son, & Roh, 2015). Despite non-Whites and women outnumbering and sometimes outperforming their White male counterparts, only rarely are they given the reigns of the most powerful organizations in society. Economists are perhaps most disturbed by this phenomenon, as orthodox economic theory would predict that it is suboptimal for society to select its top leaders from only 34% of the population (i.e., the White men; The Economist, 2008). 1 One way to potentially reduce this status and power gap is to place women and non-White leaders We would like to thank Russell Cropanzano and Yuchen Zhang, as well as the entire leadership division of the Leeds School of Business. We would also like to thank Roland Smith, Michael Campbell, Shannon Bendixen, Xiuxi (Sophia) Zhao, and Angeline Lim at the Center for Creative Leadership, and, last but not least, the RSG for their tireless support of this project.
Humble leaders are traditionally thought to create a great deal of human and socialcapital, yet b... more Humble leaders are traditionally thought to create a great deal of human and socialcapital, yet be overshadowed by self-promoting rivals for promotions. We proposethat through informal career mentoring, humble leaders can improve their organiza-tional status and promotability. We tested our model among a multisource sample of610 leaders across 18 industries and 21 job functions who participated in a leaderdevelopment program. Leader humility was reported by the focal leaders' peers,leader mentoring behavior was reported by the focal leaders' direct reports, leaderstatus was reported by the focal leaders' immediate bosses, and leader promotabilitywas reported by the focal leaders' superiors. Results generally confirmed that leaderhumility predicted leader mentoring behavior, which in turn predicted leader status,and ultimately higher leader promotability ratings. We discuss how our findingsextend and enrich the literatures on leader humility and mentoring, showing howhumble leaders can ascend organizational hierarchies.
Humble leaders are traditionally thought to create a great deal of human and socialcapital, yet b... more Humble leaders are traditionally thought to create a great deal of human and socialcapital, yet be overshadowed by self-promoting rivals for promotions. We proposethat through informal career mentoring, humble leaders can improve their organiza-tional status and promotability. We tested our model among a multisource sample of610 leaders across 18 industries and 21 job functions who participated in a leaderdevelopment program. Leader humility was reported by the focal leaders' peers,leader mentoring behavior was reported by the focal leaders' direct reports, leaderstatus was reported by the focal leaders' immediate bosses, and leader promotabilitywas reported by the focal leaders' superiors. Results generally confirmed that leaderhumility predicted leader mentoring behavior, which in turn predicted leader status,and ultimately higher leader promotability ratings. We discuss how our findingsextend and enrich the literatures on leader humility and mentoring, showing howhumble leaders can ascend organizational hierarchies.
Recent meta-analytic studies imply that groups often find ways of neutralizing turnover’s harmful... more Recent meta-analytic studies imply that groups often find ways of neutralizing turnover’s harmful effects and that important moderators of the turnover–performance relationship must be missing from the literature. Building on theory and findings related to the threat–rigidity effect, we suggest that groups tend to respond maladaptively to turnover when group norms promote the idea that turnover is threatening. Specifically, we suggest that prevention climate—that is, a climate focused on minimizing mistakes and costs—largely determines the degree to which group norms encourage members to view turnover as threatening and, in turn, the degree to which groups become less adaptive and perform worse in response to turnover. Across a sample of 232 groups, we found evidence that turnover is indeed more negatively related to performance for those groups with a strong prevention climate. Further, in a controlled laboratory context where we manipulated turnover and prevention climate, we found causal evidence supporting our full conceptual model. Our work advances research on turnover by identifying an important moderator and an underlying mechanism of the turnover–performance relationship.
Across four studies, we examine how public negative labeling, which is when a group member is pub... more Across four studies, we examine how public negative labeling, which is when a group member is publicly identified as bad, affects team performance. Across three experiments and one field study, we test and find support for our model, that public negative labeling undermines team performance via reduced perceptions of team interaction quality. Our study contributes to the expansive conversation on team effectiveness which highlights that “fighting fire with fire” in terms of public negative labeling is ineffective for dealing with uncivil workplace behavior.
We suggest that employee job embeddedness and retention may lead organizations to become immobile... more We suggest that employee job embeddedness and retention may lead organizations to become immobile and unable to make important changes. We hypothesize and find that organizations with a highly immo...
We propose a theory of bad apple antecedents that emphasizes the role of labeling in the creation... more We propose a theory of bad apple antecedents that emphasizes the role of labeling in the creation of this phenomenon. Existing research on negative group members has focused on bad behavior as the antecedent to group degradation. Evidence of bad behavior producing positive results and undeserving individuals being stigmatized as bad apples have cast doubt on exactly what behaviors are negative and what constitutes a bad apple. The results of three studies provide significant evidence that the labels, not the behaviors, create bad apples and lead to the degradation of group performance. Our first study provides evidence that bad apples can be created by introducing the concept of a label. Our second study provides a link to critical group processes and our third study provides a link to group performance. Specifically, we found that introducing a bad apple label results in the creation of stigmatized bad apples which decrease group performance, mediated by a reduction in the perceived quality of team inter...
Recent meta-analytic studies imply that groups often find ways of neutralizing turnover’s harmful... more Recent meta-analytic studies imply that groups often find ways of neutralizing turnover’s harmful effects and that important moderators of the turnover–performance relationship must be missing from the literature. Building on theory and findings related to the threat–rigidity effect, we suggest that groups tend to respond maladaptively to turnover when group norms promote the idea that turnover is threatening. Specifically, we suggest that prevention climate—that is, a climate focused on minimizing mistakes and costs—largely determines the degree to which group norms encourage members to view turnover as threatening and, in turn, the degree to which groups become less adaptive and perform worse in response to turnover. Across a sample of 232 groups, we found evidence that turnover is indeed more negatively related to performance for those groups with a strong prevention climate. Further, in a controlled laboratory context where we manipulated turnover and prevention climate, we foun...
We suggest that organizational and professional identification are two sources of motivation that... more We suggest that organizational and professional identification are two sources of motivation that can be channeled in similar or different directions based on perceived organizational and professional regulatory focus. Specifically, we hypothesize and find that both types of identification-based motivation are channeled toward diagnosis behaviors when professionals think their coworkers and colleagues value a promotion focus, and they are channeled toward treatment behaviors when professionals think their coworkers and colleagues value a prevention focus. Our results advance research on social identification by helping to explain how and when organizational and professional identification influence work performance, and also advance the organizational literature on professions by introducing diagnosis and treatment as two theory-derived types of in-role performance for professional employees.
In response to recent critiques of the methods commonly used to study the psychological contract,... more In response to recent critiques of the methods commonly used to study the psychological contract, this study details and advocates the use of an experimental design within this literature. The expe...
ABSTRACT As a result of recent preventable corporate failures (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brot... more ABSTRACT As a result of recent preventable corporate failures (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae), there is a growing desire to understand what might motivate employees to courageously detect and deflect organizational problems before they harm the entire organization. Based on 94 interviews we conducted with a wide variety of employees who witnessed or undertook courageous actions, we inductively developed a model using employees’ accounts of the unfolding sequence of events. We learned that employees report engaging in courageous workplace actions when they feel responsible for dealing with a challenging situation such as a workplace error, an abuse of power, an ambiguous situation, or someone in need. We interpreted the stories of courage as suggesting that workplace courage may be a two-stage process, where actors first determine their level of personal responsibility to respond to the challenging situation and then determine the potential social costs of acting. Our model of the courageous workplace action appears to challenge the conventional wisdom of courage as being attributed to a person’s disposition, may enrich theories of intrinsic motivation, and may help clarify the role of cognition in courageous action. Our findings may also help to resolve some of the contradictory evidence regarding the antecedents of the many organizational constructs related to courage including whistle-blowing, voice, speaking up, taking charge, positive deviance, and organizational dissent.
We seek to help solve the puzzle of why top-level leaders are disproportionately White men. We su... more We seek to help solve the puzzle of why top-level leaders are disproportionately White men. We suggest that this race-and sex-based status and power gap persists, in part, because ethnic minority and female leaders are discouraged from engaging in diversityvaluing behavior. We hypothesize, and test in both field and laboratory samples, that ethnic minority or female leaders who engage in diversity-valuing behavior are penalized with worse performance ratings, whereas White or male leaders who engage in diversity-valuing behavior are not penalized for doing so. We find that this divergent effect results from traditional negative race and sex stereotypes (i.e., lower competence judgments) placed upon diversity-valuing ethnic minority and female leaders. We discuss how our findings extend and enrich the vast literatures on the glass ceiling, tokenism, and workplace discrimination. Women and non-Whites have made remarkable gains in the workplace in recent decades. Non-Whites and women outnumber White men in the U.S. workplace by a margin of two to one (Burns, Barton, & Kerby, 2012). However, a demographic status and power gap remains, as recent data show that only 25 Fortune 500 companies are headed by people of color and 21 by women (Catalyst, Inc., 2013; Diversity, Inc. staff, 2012). Likewise, corporate boards in the Fortune 500 are primarily composed of White men (74.4%), followed by White women (13.3%). Among ethnic minorities, 6.8% of corporate board members are African American, 3.1% are Latino, and 2.4% are Asian American (Zweigenhaft & Domhoff, 2011). The status and power gap between men and women persists despite meta-analytic evidence suggesting that women tend to be rated as better leaders than men (Paustian-Underdahl, Walker, & Woehr, 2014), and any performance evaluation gap that may exist fails to account for the highly visible status and power gap within organizations (Joshi, Son, & Roh, 2015). Despite non-Whites and women outnumbering and sometimes outperforming their White male counterparts, only rarely are they given the reigns of the most powerful organizations in society. Economists are perhaps most disturbed by this phenomenon, as orthodox economic theory would predict that it is suboptimal for society to select its top leaders from only 34% of the population (i.e., the White men; The Economist, 2008). 1 One way to potentially reduce this status and power gap is to place women and non-White leaders We would like to thank Russell Cropanzano and Yuchen Zhang, as well as the entire leadership division of the Leeds School of Business. We would also like to thank Roland Smith, Michael Campbell, Shannon Bendixen, Xiuxi (Sophia) Zhao, and Angeline Lim at the Center for Creative Leadership, and, last but not least, the RSG for their tireless support of this project.
Uploads
Papers by David Hekman