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Using survey data from 459 employed individuals, the conditional indirect effects of three types of interpersonal conflict at work on strains and performance through surface acting were tested. Results indicated that task, relationship and non-task organizational conflict were positively related to depressive and physical symptoms and negatively related to performance. Task conflict had a significantly weaker association with employee outcomes than either relationship or non-task organizational conflict. Surface acting negatively related to all types of conflict, although it had a weaker association with relationship conflict than task or non-task organizational conflict. Support was found for moderated mediation relationships whereby surface acting mediated the associations between all types of conflict with depressive symptoms, as well as the association between relationship and non-task organizational conflict with physical symptoms, when conflict was infrequent. Surface acting also mediated the associations between all types of conflict and performance when conflict was frequent. Future research directions are discussed that can advance our theoretical understanding of how emotional labour and interpersonal conflict interact to affect employees, as well as further our ability to improve employee well-being and organizational functioning. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research was to conduct two field experiments of the Social Information Processing (SIP) theory of job attitudes and reports of job characteristics. In the first, subjects were randomly assigned to either positive or no feedback regarding the job satisfaction of others in similar jobs. The results indicated that being exposed to such feedback had no effect on job satisfaction or perceptions of job characteristics. A second experiment was conducted in which both newly hired employees and employees with considerable job experience were randomly assigned to positive, negative, or no feedback conditions. The results were consistent with those of Exp. 1 in that being exposed to feedback regarding the job satisfaction of others had no effect on satisfaction or job perceptions. This was true regardless of job experience. Salancik and Pfeffer in 1978 may have overstated the importance of social cues in organizational settings.

For purposes of identifying the relationship of perceived individual control to worker outcome variables, meta-analyses are conducted on the results of 101 samples extracted from 88 published studies, utilizing 19 variable measures. Results indicate that perceived control is a significant variable in organizational behavior and, as anticipated, perceived control is linked to: high levels of job satisfaction, performance, and motivation, as well as low levels of employee emotional stress, turnover, and absenteeism. The considerable differences across the studies prevent support of the hypothesis that increased control will resolve worker problems.

We conducted a meta-analysis to determine the relation between satisfaction-turnover correlations across studies and unemployment rates at the time those studies were conducted. On the basis of theoretical work by Muchinsky and Morrow (1980), we hypothesized that low relations would be found in studies conducted during times of high unemployment and limited employment opportunity, and high relations would be found in studies conducted during times of low unemployment and expanded opportunity. Results supported the hypothesis; correlations were found that ranged from -.18 to -.52 between unemployment rates and the magnitude of satisfaction-turnover relations across studies. A similar analysis was conducted for the relation between intention to quit and turnover. The correlations between the intention-turnover relation and unemployment were similar in magnitude to the corresponding satisfaction correlations, indicating that the behavioral-intention-turnover relation is also moderated by economic alternatives. Severe methodological problems with a similar study, which indicated the opposite results (Shikiar & Freudenberg, 1982), are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Method variance is an artifact of measurement that biases results when relations are explored among constructs measured by the same method. The existence of method variance was explored for affective and perceptual constructs frequently used in organizational research. Data from multitrait-multimethod analyses, studies of social desirability and acquiescence, and relation of self-report and records of absenteeism were presented. Little evidence for method variance as a biasing problem was found with these measures. I conclude the properly developed instruments of the type studied here are resistant to the method variance problem, but that validity of these instruments cannot be assumed on the basis of these results. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

It is widely accepted that job conditions are a causal factor in stress outcomes for employees. This conclusion, however, is based almost entirely on single data source, self-report studies, which demonstrate correlations between environmental perceptions and stress outcomes. This study collected stressor data from two sources, the job incumbent and her supervisor. Convergent and discriminant validities were found for four stressors (autonomy, workload, number of hours worked, and number of people worked for) but not for three others (role ambiguity, constraints, and interpersonal conflict). Correlations were found between perceptions of stressors and outcomes, the latter including both affective and symptoms. Smaller correlations were found between supervisor reports of stressors and outcomes. Alternative causal models relevant to these results are discussed. The need for causal research including experimental designs, longitudinal designs, and multiple data sources are also discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

A Monte Carlo study was conducted to determine Types I and II error rates of the Schmidt and Hunter (S & H) meta-analysis method and the U statistic for assessing homogeneity within a set of correlations. One thousand samples of correlations were generated randomly to fill each of 450 cells of an 18 by 5 by 5 (Underlying Population Correlations by Numbers of Correlations Compared by Sample Size Per Correlation) design. To assess Type I error rates, correlations were drawn from the same population. To assess power, correlations were drawn from two different populations. As compared with U, which was uniformly robust, the Type I error rate for the S & H method was unacceptably high in many cells, particularly when the criterion for determining homogeneity was set at a highly conservative level. Power for the S & H method increased with increasing size of population differences, sample size per correlation, and in some cases, number of correlations compared. The U statistic did more poorly in most conditions in protecting from Type II errors. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

A content analysis of the two leading WOHP journals (Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and Work & Stress) from 2010 to September 2014 revealed current practices in research design, sampling, and statistics, as well as the popularity of six major topics. Five suggested future trends are discussed that we feel will move the field forward in a positive way. First, the field is too dominated by the theory‐based deductive approach, and needs to make better use of exploratory/inductive methods that are more common in medical and natural sciences. Second, more explicit approaches are needed to illuminate processes, that is, the temporal sequence of events, whereby organisational conditions lead to health‐related outcomes. Third, qualitative approaches should be more widely utilised, not only in the beginning stages of research, but as a means of studying process and testing hypotheses, as well. Fourth, researchers need to make more frequent use of complex research designs that go beyond cross‐sectional self‐reports by incorporating multiple methods and/or longitudinal structures in order to draw more definitive conclusions. Fifth, the rapid increase in the use of multilevel modeling statistics is likely to continue, having opened the door to isolating the effects of group phenomena, as well as investigating daily fluctuations in variables over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes two studies of a new relational variable social burden and its implications for employees' well‐being, job attitudes and counterproductive work behaviours. Social burden is defined as behaviours from colleagues that elicit the focal employees' social support. Across two separate samples (540 nurses and 172 university employees), we found that social burden differentiated from psychological aggression and incivility, respectively. A separate cross‐sectional sample of 273 nurses from Study 1 revealed that social burden from colleagues was positively associated with focal employees' anxiety, irritation, depressive mood, physical symptoms, job dissatisfaction and turnover intentions. Study 2 used a time‐lagged design with a separate sample of 383 university employees and 160 of their coworkers. In this study, social burden from supervisors and from coworkers were together predictive of employees' subsequent emotional strains and job attitudes, as measured 6 months later. With respect to sources of social burden, social burden from supervisors more strongly predicted job attitudes and counterproductive work behaviours directed at others, and social burden from coworkers more strongly predicted emotional strains. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical control is widely used in correlational studies with the intent of providing more accurate estimates of relationships among variables, more conservative tests of hypotheses, or ruling out alternative explanations for empirical findings. However, the use of control variables can produce uninterpretable parameter estimates, erroneous inferences, irreplicable results, and other barriers to scientific progress. As a result, methodologists have provided a great deal of advice regarding the use of statistical control, to the point that researchers might have difficulties sifting through and prioritizing the available suggestions. We integrate and condense this literature into a set of 10 essential recommendations that are generally applicable and which, if followed, would substantially enhance the quality of published organizational research. We provide explanations, qualifications, and examples following each recommendation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illegitimate tasks, a recently introduced occupational stressor, are tasks that violate norms about what an employee can reasonably be expected to do. Because they are considered a threat to one's professional identity, we expected that the daily experience of illegitimate tasks would be linked to a drop in self-esteem and to impaired well-being. We report results of two daily diary studies, one in which 57 Swiss employees were assessed twice/day and one in which 90 Americans were assessed three times/day. Both studies showed that illegitimate tasks were associated with lowered state self-esteem. Study 1 demonstrated that high trait selfesteem mitigated that relationship. Study 2 showed that illegitimate tasks were associated with not only lowered state self-esteem but also lower job satisfaction and higher anger and depressive mood, but not anger or job satisfaction remained elevated until the following morning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research was to compare the life-, job-, and health-related experiences of those who perceive an unanswered occupational calling to those who (1) are living a calling and (2) perceive no calling at all. Surveys containing measures of callings, work engagement, job involvement, career commitment, life and job satisfaction, turnover intentions, physical health and emotional well-being were administered to 378 American academics. As expected, academics with an answered occupational calling tended to report better job attitudes and domain-specific satisfaction and less withdrawal intentions than those who reported an unanswered occupational calling or no calling at all. Furthermore, those who did not have a calling to a particular vocation reported better life-, job-, and health-related outcomes than those experiencing an unanswered calling. Surprisingly, only those academics experiencing an unmet calling reported significantly poorer physical and psychological health as compared to the other two calling groups. These results are consistent with the self-determination theory, which predicts that those who are able to satisfy their basic psychological needs reap benefits in terms of psychological growth, optimal functioning, and wellbeing. The study contributes to the literature on callings by showing that having a calling is a benefit only if it is met, but can be a detriment when it is not as compared to having no calling at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]