Academic literature on the topic 'Psychology, Industrial|Psychology, Personality|Sociology, Organizational'

As the title suggests, this article takes a broad perspective on personality as it is conceptualized and measured in organizational research, and in the spirit of this Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology journal, we framed the article as a series of 7 questions. These 7 questions deal with (1) personality and multidimensional models of performance, (2) personality taxonomies and the five-factor model, (3) the effects of situations on personality–performance relationships, (4) the incremental validity of personality over cognitive ability, (5) the need to differentiate personality constructs from personality measures, (6) the concern with faking on personality tests, and (7) the use of personality tests in attempting to address adverse impact. We dovetail these questions with our perspectives and insights in the hope that this will stimulate further discussion with our readership.

The goal of our focal article was to provide a current perspective on personality testing and its use in organizational research and to elicit constructive discussion and suggestions for future research and practice. The present article caps off the discussion by integrating the main ideas presented in the commentaries within our original framework of questions and topics, with the immodest hope of advancing our understanding of personality and its measurement in the context of industrial–organizational psychology. In short, we recommend continuing to take advantage of the organizing framework of the Big Five while also pursuing more “bottom-up” approaches that examine facet-level relationships with multidimensional performance outcomes, in addition to developing process models that include more proximal motivational and situational variables. Work along these lines is valuable to both organizational science and practice.

The industrial, work, and organizational (IWO) psychology domain might corroborate on new insights developed within the fundamental personality area, but also, vice versa, the personality field should also build upon applied research on individual differences. It is our conviction that these two fields developed too independently in the past. A selective number of issues and themes that cross the personality–IWO bridge are discussed that can be addressed in future research or implemented in professional practice, including processes explaining trait–performance relationships, trait assessment in the workplace, variable versus person centred approaches towards personality description, personality of teams and groups, and finally maladaptive personality functioning. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Personality and intelligence have a long history in applied psychology, with research dating back more than 100 years. In line, early developments in industrial-organizational psychology were largely founded on the predictive power of personality and intelligence measures vis-à-vis career-related outcomes. However, despite a wealth of evidence in support of their utility, the concepts, theories, and measures of personality and intelligence are still widely underutilized in organizations, even when these express a commitment to making data-driven decisions about employees and leaders. This paper discusses the value of personality and intelligence to understand individual differences in career potential, and how to increase the adoption of theories and tools for evaluating personality and intelligence in real-world organizational contexts. Although personality and intelligence are distinct constructs, the assessment of career potential is incomplete without both.

Background: Scientific communications—including criticisms, comments, and replies—are a significant foundation of scientific progress. Objective: To give an overview on the frequency of written professional comments and replies published in the subdisciplines of psychology till 2015. Method: Scientometric analyses refer to the psychological databases PsycINFO and PSYNDEX. Results: Firstly, the results show that 2.8% of PsycINFO and 2.2% of PSYNDEX documents refer to scientific discourse. However, time trends were different, which increased (up to 3.6% at the millennium) and then decreased (2.4% in 2013-2015) in PsycINFO, with an up-and-down trajectory in PSYNDEX (decreasing from 3.5% before 1982 to 2.2% in the 1990s, an increase up to 3.1% at the millennium, and a continuous decrease to 0.9% in 2013-2015). Secondly, distinct differences were observed between the subdisciplines of psychology and with reference to both databases: psychological/health personnel issues, psychology & the humanities, clinical psychology, history & systems, and personality psychology received the most comments and replies in PsycINFO, and educational psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, and intelligent systems the least. Most comments and replies related to PSYNDEX were found in sport psychology/leisure, personality psychology, consumer psychology, and experimental psychology, and the least are found in publications on intelligent systems, animal/comparative psychology, history & systems of psychology, and military psychology. Conclusion: The results are collectively discussed (1) with respect to other indicators of scientific discourse in psychology and other sciences and (2) with respect to the different cultures of scientific discourse between the subdisciplines of psychology in the Anglo-American vs. the German-speaking countries.

Personality assessment has a long history of application in the workplace. While the field of organization development has historically focused on developmental aspects of personality tools, other disciplines such as industrial-organizational psychology have emphasized its psychometric properties. The importance of data-driven insights for talent management (e.g., the identification of high potentials, succession planning, coaching), however, is placing increasing pressure on all types of applied behavioral scientists to better understand the stability of personality tools for decision-making purposes. The current study presents research conducted with 207 senior leaders in a global consumer products organization on the use of personality assessment data over time and across two different conditions: development only and development to decision making. Results using three different tools (based on the Hogan Assessment Suite) indicate that core personality and personality derailers are generally not affected by the purpose of the assessment, though derailers do tend to moderate over time. The manifestation of values, motives, and preferences were found to change across administrations. Implications for organizational development and talent management applications are discussed.

Gardner, Ryan, and Snoeyink (2018) provided an excellent and much-needed analysis of the status of women in industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology. Although others have produced overall assessments of the status of women in psychology (Eagly & Riger, 2014; Kite et al., 2001), these are not sufficient to identify conditions within the subfields of psychology. As shown by statistics on the divisions of the American Psychological Association (http://www.apa.org/about/division/officers/services/profiles.aspx), the subfields differ greatly in their gender balance, with some being male dominated (e.g., experimental and cognitive science), others female dominated (e.g., developmental psychology), and still others representing women and men more equally (e.g., social and personality psychology). I-O psychology is among the more gender-balanced fields, with an increasing proportion of women over time. It would seem that I-O's gradual inclusion of more women should have changed aspects of research and discourse in this field. In this comment, we argue that these women have produced impressive changes.

Locus of control is a personality variable that is employed by researchers from diverse disciplines. This article examines the limits of the construct’s usage in industrial and organizational psychology. Although locus of control is documented to predict a wide array of workplace behavior such as job satisfaction, job performance and turnover intention, some important conceptual, methodological and empirical flaws raise suspicions on the explanations proposed by researchers. Considering the shortage of experimental and longitudinal evidence, it is argued that the causal direction of the well-established correlations between locus of control and other organizational behavioral variables might be the opposite of the theory’s expectation. It is also claimed that some related constructs such as self-efficacy and belief in a just world might provide further explanations for observed correlations.

Workplace bullying is a global problem that leaves workers emotionally harmed and organizations financially strapped; yet in many cases, business leaders fail to adequately address the problem. The purpose of this research was to determine if the top leader had a direct impact on the presence of bullying within the workplace. Based on personality trait theory as a theoretical foundation, the key issue this study explored was the relationship between the presence of workplace bullying and observed narcissistic behaviors exhibited by the top leader. Participants consisted of 84 human resources professionals reporting directly to the CEO/president of companies located in the United States. Observer-rated assessments were used to measure the leader's observed narcissistic behaviors along with the prevalence of bullying within the workplace. Logistic regression and Pearson correlation were used to analyze assessment data. Results revealed a strong and positive relationship between top leaders' observed narcissistic behaviors and the presence of bullying within the organization. These results suggest the top leader may not only directly impact the presence of workplace bullying, but may actually create the problem. This study contributes to social change by providing support for the need to use personality assessments when hiring or promoting top leaders. By identifying those who contribute to the sustainability of bullying, these individuals can be excluded from the selection process and workplace bullying will therefore be minimized, improving the well-being of employees and the financial performance of organizations, world-wide.

This study examined the propensity to engage in Organizational Retaliation Behaviors (ORBs) when perceiving organizational injustices in a group context. Situational scenarios were developed that incorporated distributive, procedural, and interactional justice and were administered to 211 individuals, along with a measure of the propensity to engage in ORBs directed towards group members and group leaders distinctly. Moreover, an individual's degree of narcissism was also assessed to explore its relationship to one's propensity to engage in ORBs. Analysis of Variance revealed a strong relationship between the condition exemplifying injustice and ORBs, in addition to a higher tendency of expressing ORBs towards group members when compared to group leaders. Furthermore, narcissism did not significantly impact the degree to which individuals expressed their propensity to engage in ORBs.

The combination of globalization, technological advancements, governmental regulations, changing customer tastes and trends combined with a host of other influences constantly force organizations to change, or respond to changes in the business environment. Businesses need their employees to be flexible and ready for change; however, the literature is rife with the assertion that more than 70% of organizational change initiatives fail. These failures cost organizations billions of dollars each year and have been blamed in part on employees' unreadiness for change, and their subsequent resistance to it. Businesses have a continued interest in understanding how to achieve higher rates of success with change initiatives; therefore, this research examined whether or not employees' personality traits predicted their readiness for organizational change. It also examined whether or not employees' level of education interacted with their personality traits to moderate the effects of personality traits on variances in readiness for change. Results indicated that personality traits predicted employees' readiness for change; however, increasing education did not interact with personality traits to modify the effects of personality on employee readiness for change.

Expatriation is becoming an attractive career path for many people due to the global economic movement. People experience career transitions due to change of organization, locations, responsibilities, reporting structures, and work groups. Expatriates in particular experience more extreme changes because of challenges they encounter from language differences, geographical distance across countries, culture, habit, and life style. These changes influence people's perspective in seeing things, including their self-identity. The aim of this research was to explore the evolvement of expatriates' self-identity.

A qualitative research design using reflexive narrative inquiry was employed. Seven current and former expatriates from Australia, Japan, Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States participated in this study. Through an interview process, these individuals reflected upon and shared their international experience retrospectively. Using expatriates' own narrative, an individual identity transformation story was constructed in order to answer the research question of this study: How does international experience influence a person's self-identity?

Participants noticed significant and previously unknown changes in their behavior and outlook from their assignments. These varied based upon their motives for accepting the assignment, social interaction, work requirements, and personal attitudes. The study reveals that international assignments help expatriates discover the identity that they may not have recognized previously, and affirms and transitions their already known identity to a different level through new learning and relationships from their experiences. Expatriates' enjoyment of their experience is highly influenced by their social interaction and dialogue with others. One of the drawbacks from expatriation, especially for those who are on long-term international assignments and deep immersion in the local culture, is the losing of their definition of home.

As a result of this study, recommendations include an opportunity for organizations to conduct a fit-gap analysis with employees. Results can provide information on employees' level of readiness to take on an international role, and for organizations to better support employees' preparation needs. Onsite coaching and support groups for expatriates can be beneficial to alleviate the stress that occurred during their on-boarding. In addition, expatriates are encouraged to establish their social network in the host country.

Research into the dynamicity of job performance criteria has found evidence suggesting the presence of rank-order changes to job performance scores across time as well as intraindividual trajectories in job performance scores across time. These findings have influenced a large body of research into (a) the dynamicity of validities of individual differences predictors of job performance and (b) the relationship between individual differences predictors of job performance and intraindividual trajectories of job performance. In the present dissertation, I addressed these issues within the context of the Five Factor Model of personality. The Five Factor Model is arranged hierarchically, with five broad higher-order factors subsuming a number of more narrowly tailored personality facets. Research has debated the relative merits of broad versus narrow traits for predicting job performance, but the entire body of research has addressed the issue from a static perspective -- by examining the relative magnitude of validities of global factors versus their facets. While research along these lines has been enlightening, theoretical perspectives suggest that the validities of global factors versus their facets may differ in their stability across time. Thus, research is needed to not only compare the relative magnitude of validities of global factors versus their facets at a single point in time, but also to compare the relative stability of validities of global factors versus their facets across time. Also necessary to advance cumulative knowledge concerning intraindividual performance trajectories is research into broad vs. narrow traits for predicting such trajectories. In the present dissertation, I addressed these issues using a four-year longitudinal design. The results indicated that the validities of global conscientiousness were stable across time, while the validities of conscientiousness facets were more likely to fluctuate. However, the validities of emotional stability and extraversion facets were no more likely to fluctuate across time than those of the factors. Finally, while some personality factors and facets predicted performance intercepts (i.e., performance at the first measurement occasion), my results failed to indicate a significant effect of any personality variable on performance growth. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Context effects in a personality scale were examined by determining if conscientiousness scale (C) scores were significantly different when administered alone vs. part of a Five Factor Model inventory (Big5). The effectiveness of individual difference variables (ID Vs) as predictors of the context effect was also examined. The experiment compared subjects who completed the full Big5 once and the C alone once (Big5/C or C/Big5) to subjects who complete either the Big5 inventory twice (Big5/Big5) or the C twice (C/C). No significant differences were found. When Big5/C and C/Big5 groups were combined, ID Vs were tested, and only the field dependence variable (R2=.O6) was found to significantly predict the context effect. However, the small R2 minimized concerns of context effects in Big5 inventories.

This study examined the relationship of sales employees' emotional intelligence (EI) to their organizational justice (OJ) perceptions, and examined if sales employees' job satisfaction (JS) moderated the strength of the relationship between their EI and OJ perceptions. Three assessments were administered electronically and completed by 135 participants. The Job In General (JIG) assessment measured overall JS of employees. The assessment used to measure employee EI was the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i 2.0). The assessment used to measure employee justice perceptions was the Perceived Overall Justice scale. Hierarchical moderated multiple regression analysis (MRA) was used to identify any relationships. No statistically significant finding between EI, JS, and OJ were found when using hierarchical moderated MRA. Because of the violations of assumptions for MRA, it was determined that follow-up non-parametric testing was required. Non-parametric testing found a significant relationship between employees' EI and their OJ perceptions. The non-parametric testing confirmed previous findings of significant relationship between EI and OJ. Recommendations for future research include examining individual facets of EI and OJ, using different assessment to measure EI and OJ, and using a controlled environment to recruit participants.

Previously, a worker one set of skills for an occupational lifetime. In today's environment, the need for constant skill changes have created difficulties for individuals who must unlearn, store and use knowledge in new processes to update the old. Today's workers must keep pace with changes to maintain competency. The amount of wasted time, additional energy and resources required continues to increase when actions are not updated through unlearning. Confusion regarding unlearning remains a persistent problem because a clear definition does not exist. This study: 1) investigated and collected descriptive unlearning characteristics; 2) proposed a theory to define unlearning. Study results: Ninety-three interviews with 31 participants were conducted. The participants' responses were categorized into unlearning experiences and perceptions. One Hundred-Seven participant quotations referred to Experimentation in unlearning of their Windows-based system or application. Experimentation was divided into Subcategories: 1) Unstructured Experimentation, 2) Structured Experimentation, and, 3) Resource-Based Experimentation. Employee perceptions were identified as category with subcategories of Incompetence and Competence. The third category, factors, suggests participant unlearn with, availability of support, time constraints and opportunities for experimentation. This definition was proposed: Unlearning is the process of using experimentation and available resources to promote the disuse of previous actions. Additionally, to propose a new theory of the unlearning process, the force-field theory was used as a basis for this new unlearning theory. From the study results, organizations can develop effective employees to maintain a competitive advantage.

Innovation is essential for organizational survival and effectiveness and often requires a balance between managing existing competencies, skills, and resources, and pursuing newer and radical aspirations. Organizational leaders play an important role in fostering innovation in the workplace and striking a unique equilibrium between these competing priorities to maximize individual creativity and organizational innovation outcomes. By employing path analyses, this study examined the relationship between two leadership styles—transformational leadership (TFL) and leader-member exchange (LMX) and two forms of organizational innovation (exploration and exploitation). The study also investigated the role that individual and organizational variables played in explaining the leadership-innovation relationship.

Results suggested positive but non-significant relationships between leadership styles and organizational innovation due to the high correlations and overlap between the two leadership styles. Follower autonomy was positively and significantly related to exploration innovation. When analyzed separately, positive and significant associations were found for both leadership styles and organizational innovation. Results of this study suggest the equal importance of transformational and relational styles of leadership towards fostering both forms of organizational innovation. In particular, organizational support for innovation was found to mediate the leadership-innovation relationship, suggesting the importance of social mechanisms in translating the effects of leadership into innovation outcomes for the organization.

Most companies lack the ability to implement organizational change; over 70% of Organization Change Initiatives (OCIs) fail. This inability has negative economic and survival implications for companies. OCIs must be effective and rapid to match the high pace of change in the business environment. Transformational leadership (TL) has been linked to successful OCIs through its positive influence on employee commitment and reduced resistance to change, yet little research has been done to identify its association with OCI implementation speed. This study tested TL and change theory and their association with change implementation. It sought to determine if a relationship exists between TL behavior and OCI implementation time. Archival survey and change data from 98 domestic and international manufacturing plants were used to examine relationships between employees' perceptions of leadership communication and trustworthiness and the speed of change. Hierarchical linear regression was used to determine if these behaviors could predict the change speed of an OCI. The study confirmed the association between effective leadership communication and employee trust in leadership, but it found no significant relationship between TL behavior and the speed of change. This finding is inconsistent with the majority of TL literature; however, companies may still benefit from exploring the potential of the study's theoretical concepts to help them improve the speed of organizational change. The limitations of the study were also noted as a potential contributor to the lack of significant findings, and recommendations are offered to reduce validity risk for similar studies in the future.

"Reported is the synthesis of a series of seven studies on work and health, conducted collaboratively by researchers in applied psychology and occupational medicine. This qualitative meta-study develops a framework, in which reviewed studies are structured, aggregated, integrated, and interpreted in a theory-guided iterative process of themed analysis. Building on empirical results, the subsequent interpretive integration seeks to demonstrate, how overarching, pervasive, and in psychological research typically underemphasized tendencies of “subjectification” manifest in exemplary work contexts, research topics, and results. Subjectification of work is operationalized in dimensions of work intensification (performance focus), work internalization (goal adoption), and work individualization (job personalization). A meta-dimension is work insecurity (personal risk), cultivated in contemporary management ideologies of employee self-reliance. Following thematic description, content-analytical structuring criteria include: a) focus on work task (activity) versus working conditions (context); b) primary (close, direct, explicit) versus secondary (inferred, indirect, subtle) references to and/or indication for identified tendencies of subjectification; and c) theoretically assumed and empirically examined relationships with negative (psychopathological) and positive (psychosalutogenic) short, medium, and longer-term attitudinal and health-related work effects, as well as the personality-shaping impact of long-term occupational socialization. Psychological aspects of work tasks are core to 4 studies, 3 focus on working conditions and organizational practices. References to intensification were dominant in 4 studies, whereas 5 include internalization processes, and 3 predominantly focus on individualization of work. All studies share secondary or indirect references to other subjectifying tendencies. Examined work effects were aggregated into a matrix of short, medium and long-term positive and negative manifestations of health and wellbeing. Results suggest tensions and pressures arising from the motivational individualization of work tasks and conditions, resulting internalization of organizational interests and goals (e.g., performance, efficiency, costs), coupled with system-inherent tendencies of work intensification. These dysfunctional dynamics constitute risks factors for psychologically detrimental or harmful forms of self-management, self-control, and self-endangering work behavior, as manifestations of “internalized” incompatibilities between work and health in the neoliberal workplace, aggravated by existential threats associated with political-economic crisis. Outlined are implications of subjectification for a critical reevaluation and reorientation of basic theoretical assumptions of research and practice in applied psychology and occupational health."