The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Loi, R., Yang, J., & Diefendorff, J.M. (2009). Four-factor justice and daily job satisfaction: A multilevel investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 770-781.

Job satisfaction has been shown to be directly linked to positive work outcomes such as organizational citizenship behaviors. Although it is relatively stable over time, a person’s job satisfaction does vary on a day-to-day basis. One key aspect that influences a person’s daily job satisfaction is the perception of justice in the organization.

Four-Factor Model of Organizational Justice

Organizational justice is the subjective perception a person has of how fair their organization is. There are four types of organizational justice. The first two are structural forms of justice, meaning they are stable over time. These are:

• Distributive justice – fairness of the distribution of organizational resources.
• Procedural justice – fairness of the organizational procedures.

For example, compensation and rules for allocating pay do not change day-to-day, therefore the fairness perceptions toward the organization based on the distribution and procedures will be stable.

The other two types of organizational justice are social forms of justice, meaning they are more variable and dependent on day-to-day events and interactions. These are:

• Interpersonal justice – fair and respectful treatment within the organization.
• Informational justice – fair amount and timeliness of shared information.

People will encounter different levels of respect and information shared with them depending on the situation. Therefore, their interpersonal and informational justice perceptions are likely to change more often than the structural forms of justice.

How Do the Four Types of Justice Affect Daily Job Satisfaction?

People will base their perceptions of fairness on the most readily available information. While all forms of justice are positively related to job satisfaction, regular appraisals of job satisfaction are heavily influenced by the daily interpersonal and informational justice perceptions, as this information is more current and accessible.

The structural forms of justice enhance (or constrain) the relationship social forms of justice have with everyday job satisfaction.

Specifically, the positive relationship interpersonal justice has with everyday job satisfaction is stronger when there is less distributive justice and weaker when there is more distributive justice. Since distributions of resources and respectful treatment can both be considered as outcomes, when people feel that the distribution of resources is unfair, they will look more to the treatment they are receiving from their supervisors and organization to supplement the lack of material outcomes.

Also, the positive relationship informational justice has with everyday job satisfaction is stronger when there is less procedural justice and weaker when there is more procedural justice. The reason this occurs is if people perceive procedures to be unfair, they will be looking for explanations and information from supervisors to continually assess the situation.

Practical Implications

In today’s competitive marketplace, it is important for employers to provide employees with organizational justice in order reap the positive outcomes of highly satisfied employees.

Managers and supervisors should always strive for fairness in the distribution of resources and the procedures to allocate them. They should also strive to treat employees with respect and dignity and provide timely and sufficient communication.

Being aware of how the different forms of justice interact to influence daily job satisfaction will help managers and supervisors keep employees satisfied, even in situations where some injustice may be perceived.

If employees perceive unfairness in the distribution of resources, managers and supervisors should strive to provide even better treatment to their employees. If employees perceive unfairness in the procedures used to allocate resources, managers should strive for even more two-way communication with the employees.

Interpretation by:

Lexy Adkins

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Lavelle, J. J., Brockner, J., Konovsky, M. A., Price, K. H., Henley, A. B., Taneja, A., & Vinekar, V. (2009). Commitment, procedural fairness, and organizational citizenship behavior: A multifoci analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 337-357.

Organizational citizenship behaviors, or OCBs, play a significant role in the success of many organizations. OCBs are those behaviors which go beyond what is required of employees. Because of this, OCBs are sometimes called extra-role behaviors. Employees are not formally rewarded for such behaviors, but are generally motivated to perform for the sake of the recipient.

There are two broad directions toward which OCBs are targeted: OCB toward the organization (OCB-O) and OCB toward individuals (OCB-I).

Examples of OCB-O include:

• Promoting one’s organization to outside individuals and organizations
• Avoiding unnecessary absences from work
• Participating in voluntary meetings

Examples of OCB-I include:

• Bringing treats to work to share with coworkers
• Voluntarily helping a coworker with an assignment
• Avoiding conflict with others

Because OCBs are important to work climate and functioning, it is important to understand what factors influence them. Two such factors are  procedural justice and commitment.

Procedural Justice

Procedural justice involves the extent to which decisions are perceived to be made in a fair and consistent manner. Perceptions of procedural justice are often important in managing employee relations, especially when making difficult decisions such as layoffs.

Commitment

Procedural justice can enhance or hinder employee commitment, either to an organization or to a specific individual or group. Commitment is an important antecedent to OCBs, as being committed to an organization or person(s) often motivates an employee to engage in extra-role behavior.

OCB – Target Similarity

Target similarity refers to examining procedural justice, commitment, and OCBs that are either organization-focused or individual(s)-focused. That is, it is most effective to understand OCB-Os by examining how procedural justice conducted by the organization affects employee commitment to their organization, and OCB-Is by examining how procedural justice conducted by individuals influence employee commitment to those individuals.

When these distinctions are made, research has shown that organizations perceived to be fair when dealing with layoffs had more employee commitment, which resulted in greater OCB-O.

To predict OCB-Is in the context of teamwork, though, fairness in decisions made by teams resulted in greater commitment to one’s teammates, which lead to greater OCB-I.

Implications for Practice

Based on these findings, we at the DeGarmo Group offer the following recommendations.

• Raise or maintain perceptions of procedural justice in your organization. This includes perceptions of the organization as well as perceptions regarding supervisors/ coworkers. Implement policies and procedures that establish ground rules for behavior and expectations and ensure employees at all levels of the organization are aware of them.
• Take special care to insure policies are perceived as fair when dealing with sensitive issues such as layoffs.
• Monitor feedback from employees to discover whether they feel procedures are fair and consistently followed. Employee
  surveys, focus groups, or even anonymous suggestion boxes can be used to gauge employee perceptions.
• Investigate perceptions of procedural injustice to determine their root causes. Are such perceptions based on rumors, ignorance of company policy, or actual transgressions by the organization or employees? Consider education, discipline, or procedural revisions as ways to improve justice perceptions.
• Incorporate OCB-O and OCB-I in evaluations of performance when such behaviors are important to the functioning of the workplace, such as not being chronically absent or tardy and cooperating with coworkers on team-based assignments.
• Take steps to monitor and improve employee commitment to organizations and coworkers, supervisors, and subordinates.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Yang, J. & Diefendorf, J.M. (2009). The relations of daily counterproductive workplace behaviors with emotions, situational antecedents, and personality moderators: A diary study in Hong Kong. Personnel Psychology, 62 (2), 259-295.

Counterproductive Workplace Behavior (CWB) - volitional acts that harm or are intended to harm organizations or people within organizations – is a pervasive problem throughout almost all organizations.  CWB can be directed at the organization (CWB-O; can include tardiness or sabotaging the organization) or at individuals (CWB-I; can include spreading rumors or harming another’s possessions)- a distinction that helps to understand precipitating factors that lead to negative emotions.

CWB and Negative Emotion

CWB is thought to be participated in as a means to reduce negative emotions caused by environmental stressors.

Negative emotions elicit individuals to identify an event as incongruent with their personal goals. Therefore, individuals may have difficulty thinking about their work and performing at satisfactory levels, which in turn, lead to negative affect (emotion) and  CWB.

The “What”

Understanding the factors that precipitate negative emotions may be important in understanding the “what” behind underlying relationships of CWB and its fundamental causes (e.g., supervisor injustice).

It is thought that ambiguous tasks (i.e., uncertainty of project/work descriptions) are an antecedent to CWB-O.  Another underlying cause to CWB-O is dealing with rude customers.  On the other hand, CWB-I is related to supervisor injustice.

Who is More Susceptible?

Identifying employee’s personality traits may enhance understanding just “Who” copes with stressors at work, performs organizational citizenship behaviors, and refrains from CWB. Agreeableness (tendency to be compassionate, cooperative towards others), Conscientiousness (tendency to be disciplined, organized), and Negative Affectivity (pervasive disposition to experience situations/objects in a negative manner) are related to CWB.

Those high in agreeableness and conscientiousness may be predisposed to be good citizens and deal with stressors that lead to negative feelings.  Those high in negative affectivity may experience more negative emotions and engage in more CWB.

Implications for Practice

By understanding the “what” and the “who” of CWB it is possible to identify those factors that contribute to counterproductive work behaviors.

This can be accomplished through:

• Decreasing stress associated with ambiguous situations – clearly communicate the tasks given to employees.
• Decreasing the likelihood of customer aggression – ensure that service is consistently satisfactory and that the service environment (e.g., waiting room, temperature) is sufficiently comfortable.
• Decreasing supervisor injustice – develop interpersonal relations training for managers/supervisors, assure better communication, or have employees provide feedback about supervisor performance/behavior.
• Developing training programs that focus on dealing with negative emotions (i.e., stress management or anger management) – this should lead to higher employee capabilities to manage stressors and ultimately, negative emotions.
• Implementing pre-employment screening to identify personality factors associated with lower CWB – those high in agreeableness and conscientiousness, while low in negative affectivity hold traits that lead to decreased CWB.

Interpretation by:

Adam Bradshaw

The DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Tangirala, S., & Ramanujam, R. (2008). Exploring nonlinearity in employee voice: The effects of personal control and organizational identification. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 1189-1203.

When you think of employee voice, what do you think of? Do you think of a dissatisfied employee voicing his issues to his supervisor? Do you think of an innovative employee voicing her ideas for a new process? Both are valid examples of employee voice. Voice is defined as employee communication on issues of work processes. Two key factors influencing the likelihood of an employee engaging in voice are personal control and organizational identification.

How Does Personal Control Relate to Voice?

Personal control is defined as perceptions of autonomy and impact in the employee’s work environment.  Therefore, when an employee has autonomy in his workplace, meaning he feels a sense of independence and choice in his work, and has a sense of impact or control over the outcomes in the workplace, he can be considered to have high personal control. If an employee feels like he has no control over his work or the organizational outcomes, he can be said to have low personal control.

Employees with high and low personal control both often demonstrate high levels of employee voice. The difference is in the motivations underlying the voicing.

• Low personal control. Employees with low personal control are often motivated to improve their situation or status. This is a dissatisfaction-based motivation, meaning the employee is dissatisfied with the current situation and wants to change it.

• High personal control. Employees with high personal control tend to believe their actions have impact and feel great sense of autonomy to act; therefore, they are motivated to seek the opportunity to improve organizational outcomes by voicing their ideas for change. This is called an expectancy-based motivation, meaning the employee expects to make a difference.

• Neither high nor low personal control? In this case, the employee doesn’t have a strong motivation to voice for change, therefore he or she often engages in low levels of voice.

The Role of Organizational Identification

Organizational identification is the connection and loyalty an employee has toward the organization, such that the employee intensely feels its successes and failures.

Organizational identification affects the motivations behind employee voice differently (i.e., dissatisfaction-based and expectancy-based). Organizational identification dampens the dissatisfaction-based motivation and reinforces the expectancy-based motivation to engage in voice.

Employees with strong organizational identification and low personal control may overlook aspects of their job that are dissatisfying, because they trust that the situation will change on its own. In turn, they will be less likely to voice their concerns for change (motivation dampened).

On the other hand, those with high organizational identification and high personal control will likely be much more motivated to voice their ideas to improve the organizational processes, because they want to see the organization succeed and expect that they can play a role it doing that (motivation reinforced).

Implications for Practice

Due to the complexities of the workplace, managers often rely on employees’ opinions and suggestions for innovations and changes to organizational processes. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that contribute to motivating and empowering employees to voice their ideas. Below are some ways that personal control and organizational identification can be modified to influence voice.

• Increasing personal control. Personal control can be increased by job enrichment, meaning giving employees meaningful tasks that challenge them and utilize their skills and abilities. Giving employees the proper training and resources to take ownership of their work, and developing a clear and valued reward system based on their performance, will lead to a sense of personal control and, in turn, an increase in voice.

• Avoiding moderate personal control. Because moderate levels of personal control lead to no motivation for employees to engage in voice, it is important not to implement interventions that provide moderate personal control (e.g., halfway interventions that send mixed messages to employees).

• Increasing organizational identification. Implementing practices that increase organizational identification (e.g., fostering employee pride in what the organization stands for) along with interventions to increase personal control will likely lead to an increase in voice.

• Purposefully reducing voice. On the other hand, by implementing practices to increase organizational identification along with inventions that restrict personal control (e.g., delegating little authority to employees or soliciting limited employee input with making decisions) will lead to reduction in employee voice. Reduced voice may be desired at certain times. For example, voice may be disruptive when the implementation of idea is important rather than a generation of new ideas.

Efforts to enhance voice can also lead to other positive organizational outcomes. Organizational identification-enhancing practices can result in greater employee loyalty and commitment.  Also, efforts to increase personal control can also lead to an increase in job satisfaction, reduction of stress, and improved job performance.

Interpretation by:

Lexy Adkins

DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Holtz, B. C., & Harold, C. M. (2009). Fair today, fair tomorrow? A longitudinal Investigation of overall justice perceptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1185 – 1199.

It is commonly thought that employees’  overall justice perceptions (global evaluations of an organization or supervisor based on previous experiences with that entity) are, barring any major changes or events occurring in the workplace, stable over time. However, contrary to this belief, in the absence of major changes and events, each employee’s perceptions are still variable over time.

The good news is that there are known factors that influence overall justice perceptions, including individual justice dimensions and trust in the organization and supervisor. With knowledge of these factors, organizations can work to mitigate changes in the negative direction and sustain greater perceptions of fairness in the workplace.

How Much Do These Perceptions Vary?

The most relevant aspects that feed into overall justice perceptions are the employees’ perceptions of the fairness of their organization, overall organizational justice, and perceptions of the fairness of their supervisor, overall supervisory justice perceptions. Although coworkers and customers also contribute to employees’ overall justice perceptions, the supervisor and organization are the biggest contributors, as they are perceived to be most responsible for workplace events and environment.

Previously it was thought that once these perceptions were formed, they were unchanging. However, recent research has shown there is variability in both an employee’s overall organizational justice and supervisory justice perceptions over time. Particularly, the average rating of fairness shifts back and forth from greater perceptions of fairness to less perceptions of fairness.

These shifts could occur due to new information being obtained (possibly from coworkers), different experiences within the organization or with the supervisor, or differing moods of the employee.

What Predicts Overall Justice Perceptions?

To clear up the mystery of why overall justice perceptions change over time, we now highlight the factors that help predict these perceptions.

Overall organizational justice has been shown to be best predicted by:

• Organizational Trust
• Interpersonal Justice (level of respect and dignity shown to employees during interactions)
• Distributive justice (fairness of outcomes and distribution of resources)
• Procedural Justice (fairness in decision making and procedures to allocate resources)

Overall supervisory justice is best predicted by:

• Supervisor Trust
• Interpersonal Justice

What is particularly important here is that employees who trust their organizations and supervisors have less rapid change in overall organizational and supervisory justice perceptions, respectively. When employees trust an organization or a supervisor, they expect them to be fair. Thus, their expectations of fair treatment (or unfair treatment) predispose the employees to view the organization and supervisor as fair (or unfair) in the future.

Supervisor-focused interpersonal justice proves to be a strong predictor of overall supervisory justice perceptions. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that interactions with the supervisor occur so often in organizations that the treatment in these interactions becomes more meaningful to employees than other forms of justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, and informational justice).

Interestingly enough, supervisor-focused interpersonal justice helps predict not only overall supervisory justice perceptions, but also overall organizational justice perceptions. This most likely occurs because employees typically view the supervisor as a representative of the organization, thus viewing the fairness of their supervisor to be representative of the fairness of the organization as a whole.

Implications for Practice

Because trust proves to be the best predictor of overall justice perceptions, organizations and supervisors should continually work to build trust with their employees.

It is in DeGarmo Group’s opinion that trust can be cultivated early in an employee’s time with an organization. By following through with what is promised to an employee, even during the selection process, the employee will gain trust in the organization and supervisor’s word.

Similarly, organizations should always employ fair decision-making practices and procedures for distributing resources to employees. However, it is the interactions with supervisors that play an even greater role in determining the employees’ overall justice perceptions. We advise organizations and supervisors to be respectful in their day-to-day interactions with their employees, as disrespectful treatment leads to a decrease in the employees’ overall justice perceptions.

In sum, employees’ overall justice perceptions should not be taken for granted and viewed as unchanging. Because greater overall justice perceptions lead to positive work outcomes (e.g., high job satisfaction, organizational-directed and supervisor-directed citizenship behaviors, organizational commitment), an organization should continually strive to gain trust, be respectful during interactions, and be fair when making decisions and allocating resources.

Interpretation by:

Lexy Adkins

The DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Mesmer-Magnus, J.R., & DeChurch, L.A. (2009). Information Sharing and Team Performance: A Meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(2), 535-546.

Organizations increasingly utilize teams as a basis for structuring work and decision-making. A central reason for utilizing a multi-person format for making decisions is for reaching decisions of higher quality than possible by a single individual.

A key ingredient to successful team-based decision-making is the sharing of information among members. How, and what, information is shared between members greatly impacts the team’s decision-making ability.

Information shared among members of a team can be classified on two dimensions:  uniqueness and openness.

Information uniqueness

The extent to which team members make use of each other’s distinct sets of knowledge can greatly benefit the team.

The more unique the information and knowledge possessed by each team member, the greater amount of information shared among the team, resulting in greater team decision-making performance.

Open sharing of information

The more open members are in sharing information with each other, the greater the opportunity for stronger trust and cohesion between members, leading to increased opportunities for members to interact. The more interaction between members, the more familiar they become with each other, thus more open information sharing.

Effectively utilizing uniqueness and openness

Some important elements for effective team-based decision-making include:

• Create a structure for team discussion.

Initiating a structure for team discussion leads to more unique information sharing, as keeping the discussion focused ensures each individual will be able to share their unique information.

• Compose teams appropriately.

Member diversity is important for increasing the potential for sharing unique information. However, member similarity – not diversity – leads to open sharing of information. Teams must be composed with an appropriate balance of similar (for open sharing) and dissimilar (for information uniqueness) individuals.

• Create a cooperative environment

The more team members cooperate with each other, the more cohesive a group they become, leading to easier sharing of information with one another.

In order for organizations to make the most of team-based formats, they need to ensure members have access to as much relevant information as possible. By focusing on how teams are composed and operate, the greatest amount of unique information is shared openly, leading to more effective decisions.

Interpretation by:

Kathleen Melcher

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Kluemper, D. H., Little, L. M., & DeGroot, T. (2009). State or trait: Effects of state optimism on job-related outcomes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 209-231.

Surviving the various burdens of one’s work and personal lives can be difficult for anyone, not even counting the “Great Recession” of the last two years which has been so stressful for so many people. Morale of employees ranging from CEOs to interns has dropped precipitously in line with the fall in consumer confidence and rising unemployment. However, seeing the “bright side of things” and having hope for the future can relate to meaningful positive outcomes at a personal and an organizational level. These outcomes include:

• Reduced distress
• Reduced burnout
• Greater affective commitment
• Greater job satisfaction

Optimism even seems to play a role in increasing performance. The good news is that these positive effects are not limited just to those individuals who have optimistic personalities. Rather, the effects appear to be greatest when people experience more situational, day-to-day type optimism.

Optimistic Thinking

Optimistic people tend to demonstrate a thinking process that attributes their successes and achievements to their own personal, consistent behavior. They also attribute set-backs or failures to transient causes that can be changed in the future. Pessimists, on the other hand, tend to think that good outcomes in their life are random events that are out of their control, while bad outcomes are the result of an inherent personal defect.

How people attribute cause to successes and failures is important for a variety of mental and emotional reasons, but it is also significant for how people approach challenges: those who believe they have the power to “make good things happen” are more likely to put in greater effort to accomplish their goals.

Optimism exists at both a trait level and a state level. Traits are personality-related, as they are generally stable over time and influence thoughts, feelings, and behavior across a variety of situations. States are generally short-term and often influenced by context.

Thus trait optimists tend to frequently look for the positives in things and do so in many different domains of their lives. People who experience state optimism look on the bright side in more specific and short-term situations, for instance with personal relationships or with their jobs. Thus, people who are generally optimists can at times be pessimistic, and vice-versa.

Optimism and Work Outcomes

Optimism, state and trait, has been linked to experiencing less negative outcomes, such as symptoms of psychological distress and burnout. Burnout includes feelings of emotional exhaustion, emotional/personal detachment, and loss of confidence in one’s abilities.

Beyond an association with a reduction in troublesome outcomes, optimism has been demonstrated to predict greater affective commitment to one’s organization. Thus, more optimistic people may want to remain with their organizations more than less optimistic people do. Further, more optimistic people tend to enjoy greater job satisfaction. Finally, some evidence indicates that higher optimism is related to increased task performance.

A key finding is that state optimism emerges as a consistently significant predictor of these outcomes, while trait optimism does not consistently predict them. These results have been found using techniques designed to isolate the specific contribution of state versus trait optimism. Also, the results for state optimism were found regardless of a person’s predisposition to positive and negative affectivity.

Implications for Practice

Based on these results, we at the DeGarmo Group offer the following advice.

• Because the evidence indicates state optimism is more of a driver of important work outcomes than trait optimism, it may be more important to focus on developing work and organizational contexts that promote optimistic thinking rather than trying to select generally optimistic individuals as employees.
• Strive to incorporate positive thinking and personal efficacy into the work climate and culture.
• Emphasize that employees and managers can achieve success through persistence and that set-backs are temporary and can be overcome. Work to remove barriers to success that result in set-backs, such as poor communication, deficient knowledge and skills, or unproductive organizational strategies.
• Finally, promote hope in the organization by encouraging forward-looking thinking that focuses on building belief in a better, more desirable future.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Hartel, C. & Page, K.M. (2009). Discrete emotional crossover in the workplace: The role of affect intensity. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 24 (3), 237-253.

Emotions in the workplace have been frequently discussed for  some time now. Surprisingly, there has been little focus on the amount individuals’ experiences at work are interwoven with the experiences of those they interact with.

This phenomenon is known as crossover- the process by which an individual’s emotional state influences the emotional state of another individual.

When Can Crossover Occur?

Crossover can occur during positive and negative work events. For example, during positive work events (e.g., exciting new project) an employee’s heightened work engagement can crossover to coworkers. On the other hand, during negative work events (e.g. unrewarding, tedious project) an employee’s burnout can crossover.  Also, stress and anxiety have been shown to crossover within colleagues of the same work environment.

Crossover and Affect Intensity

Crossover is partially controlled by the degree an individual experiences emotion, also known as affect intensity.  More specifically, Affect Intensity (AI) is described as the varying intensity in which individuals experience emotions in reaction to workplace events and people such as upcoming deadlines or supervisors.

Individuals with high AI tend to focus more on the negative or positive side of things; therefore, they report stronger emotional reactions than those with low AI.”

Because of their higher emotional reactivity, high AI individuals may be more susceptible to crossover, especially from one individual with high AI to another with high AI.

Thus, understanding AI within each individual may lead to better management of crossover within the work environment.

Implications for Practice

Applying the knowledge of crossover, one should strive to reduce the number of negative work events and encourage a more positive work environment where positive crossover can occur. Specifically, one should implement practices that encourage:”

• Increases in positive emotion and action, which lead to positive resources including creativity and problem solving.
• An “undoing effect,” where those encountering negative emotions (e.g., anger or fear) overcome negative physical reactions more rapidly.
• An “upward spiral,” where individuals are more resilient and thus better able to overcome negative outcomes while seeking out positive ones – through crossover “upward spirals” occur at the individual, group, and team level.

Although these may seem quite obvious, consider the following:  positive emotions have been linked to helping behaviors, creative problem-solving, collaborative negotiation, and effective decision making strategies.  Satisfied employees are more likely to feel engaged at work, be intrinsically motivated, committed to a company, and receive higher performance ratings.  Employee satisfaction can lead to positive crossover effects, which leads to better morale within the workplace and higher positive outcomes.

Overall, positive emotional crossover is likely to have beneficial effects at the individual and organizational level, while understanding negative implications of crossover (e.g., burnout) may allow for better control of these outcomes.  Lastly, understanding affect intensity can help predict individual employees’ susceptibility to emotional crossover

Interpretation by:

Adam Bradshaw

The DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from:

It is widely known that the workforce in the United States is aging. With this, comes a more prevalent risk of age stereotyping within the workplace, affecting a larger group of individuals.  If stereotypes cause an increase in the rate of turnover within older workers, organizations fail to take advantage of skilled and productive workers.

Types of Age Stereotypes

Personal beliefs and expectations about workplace age groups are considered workplace age stereotypes. Often these stereotypes are biased, negative preconceptions about older workers (this can also include younger workers), which include:

• Poor Performance- older workers have lower performance, productivity and motivation.
• Resistant to Change- older workers tend to be harder to train, are less adaptable, and more resistant to change, resulting in less return on training investments.
• Lower Ability to Learn- older workers tend to have less ability to learn; therefore, they do not develop new skills as well as younger workers.
• Shorter Tenure- Due to their age, older workers are thought to have more turnover than other age groups.
• More Costly- Older workers are more costly because they are close to retirement, use more benefits, and obtain higher wages.

These stereotypes are all rather negative giving a poor outlook for the older workgroup.  On the other hand, there is evidence to refute these negative preconceptions:

• General Tendencies- Little evidence supports declining performance with age, and more often performance improves with age.
• Individual Differences- Age is less important than differences in individual skill and health.
• Tenure- Older workers are less likely to quit, thereby resulting in more return on investment (e.g., training investments).

It should be noted that age stereotypes could be directed at younger workers too (i.e., an older individual is hired over a younger individual because it seems as though they have more experience), but our focus here is on older workers.

Implications for Practice

When dealing with age stereotypes in the workplace, organizations should:

• Identify Reasonable Factors. Ensure that hiring practices can identify factors other than age, which have influenced hiring decisions.  Preventing age stereotypes requires vigilance through observation and statistics, thereby preventing legal liability.
• Use Job Related Information. Identify age stereotypes to increase the likelihood of correctly identifying when they occur, while using valid selection procedures.
• Use Training and Development. Ensure management is properly trained to identify age stereotypes, while properly training employees will lead to development and growth of workers as they age.
• Target High-Risk Areas. Identify situations or jobs that have been stereotyped towards a certain age group.  Often times varying jobs are identified within a certain age group, therefore creating bias within a certain job domain (e.g., CEOs should be older individuals).
• Utilize Older Workers as a Competitive Advantage. Focus on skill rather than age, thereby hiring the most skilled older workers other companies may have over-looked due to their age.
• Consider Adding Complexity. Due to the fear of declining cognitive ability, managers are often inclined to reduce older worker’s responsibilities, but research suggests it may be better to switch things up and make them more complex.

Ageism may be occurring in the workplace; however, there are many methods or practices that can be useful in mitigating the negative consequences.

Interpretation by:

Adam Bradshaw

The DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Ames, D. R., & Flynn, F. J. (2007). What breaks a leader: The curvilinear relation between assertiveness and leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 307-324.

There can be too much or too little of a good thing when it comes to assertiveness in managers. Recent research has found ratings of managerial leadership are highest at a moderate level of managerial assertiveness, with low and high assertiveness being associated with lower ratings. This summary will review possible work-related costs that may explain this effect.

Assertiveness Defined

Assertiveness is defined as speaking up for oneself and acting in one’s own interests (i.e., values, goals, and preferences). Assertiveness is thought of in terms of a continuum, ranging from being submissive to hostile. It is a relatively unique characteristic in that assertiveness can be a problem if it is too high or too low; other characteristics (such as intelligence or charisma) are usually only considered problematic if they are too low.

Aspects of Leadership

The research examined how perceptions of managerial assertiveness affected ratings of four leadership aspects:

• Motivation
• Social Influence
• Managing Conflict
• Team Work

A pattern was found that showed extreme ratings of assertiveness negatively affected the ratings of each of these aspects.

Assertiveness Costs: The Buddy and the Boss

The differences in leadership ratings may be based on different social and instrumental costs associated with varying degrees of assertiveness. When managers exhibit low levels of assertiveness, they may be more well-liked but be perceived as weak and not able to get the job done; this weakness can be thought of as the instrumental cost of being too passive or submissive. On the other hand, managers who are extremely aggressive may be thought of as highly effective in terms of getting work accomplished but suffer a social cost in that they are not well accepted as leaders because they are personally disliked.

Implications for Practice

Managers with a generally moderate level of assertiveness may be viewed more positively as a leader compared to low or high assertiveness managers. Moderate managers have the ability to accomplish the instrumental tasks at work without being socially abrasive. Some suggestions for encouraging managers to be moderately assertive include:

• Using skills training and coaching to teach managers how to be more (or less) assertive
• Regularly emphasizing the importance of moderate assertiveness to help ensure managerial behavior doesn’t revert back to previous unsatisfactory levels
• Changing managers’ norms about what is considered acceptable assertiveness

A key to improving perceptions of managerial leadership is changing managers’ expectations about what level of assertiveness is appropriate when their expectations are not congruent with how much assertiveness is actually necessary. This can be done through changing norms and skills using training or coaching. For those people who will not change their assertiveness if needed, other methods may be necessary in areas such as hiring or promotion to reduce the number of these individuals in managerial roles.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group