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Purpose One of the goals of various European Union (EU) organizations (i.e. Roma and non-Roma nonprofits) is the integration of Roma into the educational system. A challenge for the educational systems of EU countries, therefore, is to determine how to support the academic performance of Roma. Understanding the positive and negative factors related to Roma’s academic performance and achievement is an important first step in increasing academic success among this minority group. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative experimental design was used both online and face-to-face to examine whether stereotype threat had an influence on the academic performance of Roma in Slovakia and second, whether such threat was moderated by social identification and academic self-efficacy. Findings The results showed that stereotype threat does influence Roma in Slovakia and there were direct effects of social identity and academic self-efficacy on academic performance of the face-to-face participants. Originality/value Consistent with stereotype threat theory, to the best of authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to show that a stereotype threat did harm the academic performance of the face-to-face Roma sampled. Further, although many studies have examined stereotype threat effects on academic performance, little is known regarding whether social identification and academic self-efficacy have an influence on such threats. The results of the study show that social identification and academic self-efficacy had a significant direct influence on academic performance.

Human capital attributes, such as political skill, motivate employees and relate to their success. While political skill is associated with greater objective (i.e. salary) and subjective (i.e. career satisfaction) career success, the strength of these relationships has been inconsistent. Grounded in social identity theory, therefore, we propose and test the hypothesis that in certain types of contexts, political skill may be more strongly associated with subjective career success than objective career success. The sample ( N = 856) was taken from a large family-controlled financial services firm in Ecuador. Using Smart Partial Least Squares (PLS) structural equation modeling, our results showed that, in the unique Ecuadorian context, political skill is more strongly related to career satisfaction than to performance evaluations or salary. In addition, the relationship between political skill and career satisfaction is partially mediated by affective commitment. Theoretical explanations of how political skill operates in non-Western contexts have not been addressed in the extant literature. As such, our single-culture context provides an elaboration-type advancement in political skill theory by testing the boundaries of the theory in very specific contexts. This work contributes to cross-cultural management research by providing a reason for why specific employee skill sets may be developed in different ways depending on cultural specifics. As such, excelling at certain work skills may be much more socially complex when cultural dynamics are taken into consideration.

Research teams face complex leadership and coordination challenges. We propose shared authentic leadership (SAL) as a timely approach to addressing these challenges. Drawing from authentic and functional leadership theories, we posit a multiple mediation model that suggests three mechanisms whereby SAL influences team effectiveness: shared mental models (SMM), team trust, and team coordination. To test our hypotheses, we collected survey data on leadership and teamwork within 142 research teams that recently published an article in a peer-reviewed management journal. The results indicate team coordination represents the primary mediating mechanism accounting for the relationship between SAL and research team effectiveness. While teams with high trust and SMM felt more successful and were more satisfied, they were less successful in publishing in high-impact journals. We also found the four SAL dimensions (i.e., self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing, and internalized moral perspective) to associate differently with team effectiveness.

We examined the direct and interactive effects of respondents’ implicit leadership theories (ILTs), attribution styles, and performance cues on leadership perceptions. After first assessing respondents’ implicit leadership theories and attribution styles, the participants were randomly assigned to one of nine performance cue conditions ([leader performance: low vs. average vs. high] × [follower performance: low vs. average vs. high]), observed the same leader’s behavior via video, and rated the leader by completing three leadership questionnaires. The results supported the notion that these three components of information have both direct and interactive effects on leadership perceptions as measured by the questionnaires. The three components of information accounted for about 10% of the variance in the three questionnaires. The results contribute to theories of information processing by demonstrating how ILTs, attribution styles, and performance cues interact to predict leadership perceptions. Implicatio...

We extend attribution and stakeholder theory in the context of crisis reputation management by examining differences in stakeholder perceptions in the form of organization-related blame. We presented eight stakeholder groups with factual information surrounding the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and asked them to indicate the extent to which they blamed the leaders and organizations associated with the event. Stakeholders also completed a survey assessing their attribution styles. Results indicated that perceptions of blame were affected by the interaction of stakeholder role (i.e., active vs. passive) with attribution style (i.e., optimistic vs. pessimistic). Our results suggest that organizational leaders’ understanding of their stakeholders may be an important aspect in managing stakeholders’ sensemaking during crises.

Purpose – The workforce is becoming increasingly diverse and yet leadership research has lagged behind this trend. In particular, theory links leader-member exchange (LMX) to the development of racially diverse leaders (e.g. Scandura and Lankau, 1996). Yet, there remains a need for empirical evaluation of this premise. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, results of two studies of the effects of leader-member diversity on the LMX dimensions of professional respect, affect, loyalty, and contributions were examined. In the first study, supervisor-subordinate dyads in an applied work setting were examined, while in the second study a laboratory study was used. Findings – Results in Study 1 indicated that cross-race and minority dyads reported different LMX attributes of professional respect, affect, loyalty and contributions compared with dyads where both members were of the racial majority. In Study 2, racial compositions of dyads was not associated with reported differences in LMX relationships, but was associated with differences in task performance. Originality/value – This research provides the first systematic examination of the influence of racial diversity on LMX in a leader-follower dyad. As such, this work provides an important reference point in which future research on LMX and diversity can build. Such efforts will help future organizational leaders better navigate the increasingly diverse workplace.

Research has typically explained the positive intrapsychic influence of political skill using Conservation of Resources (COR) theory. However, research explaining the possible negative intrapsychic consequences of high levels of political skill is lacking. Therefore, we introduce Cognitive Activation Theory (CAT) to the political skill literature to explain possible negative outcomes of political skill. In testing this theory, we used two hierarchical moderated multiple regressions to examine the relationship between affective and continuance commitment, life satisfaction, and political skill in a large, privately owned, financial services firm in Ecuador. Aligned with prior research, affective commitment positively affected life satisfaction; however, contrary to our hypothesis, continuance commitment also positively affected life satisfaction. Furthermore, consistent with both Conservation of Resources and Cognitive Activation Theory, results indicated that political skill strengthened the relationship between affective commitment and life satisfaction. However, contrary to Cognitive Activation Theory, political skill did not significantly weaken the relationship between continuance commitment and life satisfaction.

In this article, we refine and extend the conceptualization of collective leadership by examining how institutional work can play a central role in the emergence of collective leadership success or failure through conflict. Specifically, based on historical traces collected from the first African American town in Mississippi, Mound Bayou, which was founded and led by a group of ex-slaves, we conceptualize collective leadership as a compilational process and elucidate the development of collective leadership amid the relational and inspirational aspects of conflict that arose among this cadre of historical collective leaders. We selected the case of Mound Bayou because the specifics of the case allowed us to explore how collective leadership emerged, and over time, led to conflict engendered by issues that arose within the institutional processes of formation, maintenance, and transformation of the town. We used interpretivist epistemology into which we incorporated and utilized historiometric methodology to code and interpret salient archival data. Based on this analysis, we inductively theorize the process by which the leaders of Mound Bayou collectively forged and led, in both cooperative and conflicting manner, the first African American community in the Mississippi Delta.

People experience pleasantness when they act toward a stimulus in an affectively coherent (e.g., approaching positive stimuli and avoiding negative stimuli) versus incoherent manner. Nevertheless, it is unclear how misattributing this pleasantness resulting from affective coherence can impact human judgment. To this end, we examined the impact of misattributing the pleasantness of affective coherence to a subsequent target (Study 1), depending on the saliency of the target (Study 2). We found that experiencing affective coherence led to more positive impressions of subsequently encountered targets than did experiencing affective incoherence. These results expand our understanding of the role affect can play in human judgment. We discuss some limitations and implications of these findings.