The research, looked at the interactive effects of resilience and role overload on family-work enrichment (FWE) and the outcomes of surface acting, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. The model was tested using a sample of 156 full-time employees who completed surveys at two time periods. As expected, resilience was positively related to FWE, and FWE was negatively related to surface acting and emotional exhaustion and positively related to job satisfaction thus demonstrating mediating effects for family-work enrichment. Role overload moderated the positive relationship between resilience and FWE such that the relationship was weaker when role overload was high indicating a boundary condition for the favorable effects of resilience. Finally, support was found for the conditional indirect effects of resilience on surface acting, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction through FWE such that the relationships were weaker when role overload was high.

As hypothesized, the authors found that FWE fully mediated the relationship between resilience and the group’s study outcomes. This finding supports the authors’ contention that FWE enhances the personal resources of individuals. This enhanced level of personal resources appears to act as a reservoir for use in buffering the strains of everyday workplace challenges. Second, the authors tested and found support for the interactionist perspective by examining the interactive effect of resilience (i.e., person) and role overload (i.e.,situation) on FWE.  The authors also demonstrated indirect effects through FWE. Third, in order to control common method variance, the authors employed a multi-stage data collection that allowed the authors to temporally separate the collection of data on the predictor and criterion variables, and they employed post hoc analyses to assess the degree of common method variance in the authors’ data.

Individual resilience helps build the reservoir of adaptive patterns, which ebb and flow as the work of the organization proceeds. Numerous studies have been conducted regarding the benefits of resilience training. In addition, managers should be mindful of the workload assigned to individuals as excessive work demands appear to have a dampening effect on the benefits of resilience. The study showed that FWE served as a vehicle for resilience to effect outcomes. This finding highlights the importance of the family-work interface in capitalizing on an individual’s positive qualities and suggests that managers should put forth effort to facilitate FWE. However, the study also demonstrated the negative impact a strong organizational situation can have on the positive effects of resilience. Thus, managers should be aware of workplace situations (e.g., after hours e-mail, excessive travel, role ambiguity) that can dampen the positive effects of personal factors such as resilience on key organizational outcomes.

Matthew Valle is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and is a former Air Force pilot. He earned a master’s degree in operations management from the University of Arkansas, an MBA from the University of Massachusetts, and a doctorate in business administration from Florida State University. He has published more than 100 articles in various outlets including Human Relations, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Managerial Psychology, Career Development International, Educational and Psychological Measurement, and the Journal of Management Inquiry.

The research looked at the work and non-work effects of information and communications technology (ICT) mediated incivility aggression, or incivility enacted through communications technology in the workplace. The title of the article is “Information and communication technology incivility aggression in the workplace: Implications for work and family.�

Incivility can be defined as a type of psychological harassment and emotional aggression that violates workplace ideals of mutual respect. While such events may occur solely in person, they may also be initiated and conducted in part or in whole via electronic mail, social media, text messaging, and other ICT-enabled media. In fact, there are reasons to think that such behavior may be more common in ICT.

The research found that engaging in ICT incivility aggression negatively impacts mood, as evidenced by a negative relationship with positive affect and a positive relationship to psychological distress. Furthermore, in the work domain, the relationship between ICT incivility aggression and job satisfaction was mediated by positive mood, but not by psychological distress. In the family domain, the relationship between incivility and family satisfaction was mediated by psychological distress, but not by mood. These mixed mediation findings may suggest that particular moods are somewhat contextual and made more salient at work versus with family.

The research uniquely reveals that deviant behavior in the form of ICT-based incivility is seemingly counterproductive. It does not lead to the kinds of positive affective outcomes that the aggressor may desire. Although it may be easier to communicate inappropriately over email and other computer-mediated channels than it is in person, that does not mean that it makes sense to do so. Moreover, ICT-based deviance may create an electronic trail that makes policy-breaking behavior easier to uncover and punish. Employees and managers who routinely communicate in deviant ways – regardless of the channel they may use to do so – will reap what they sow in terms of their emotional well-being and satisfaction. Therefore, it is incumbent on managers and employees alike to hold themselves to a high standard of professional, respectful workplace communication regardless of circumstance.

Information Processing & Management is published by Elsevier. The 2018 Impact Factor was 3.892 (based on Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports). Information Processing & Management publishes cutting-edge original research at the intersection of computing and information science concerning theory, methods, or applications in a range of domains, including but not limited to advertising, business, health, information science, information technology marketing, and social computing.

Matthew Valle is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and is a former Air Force pilot. He earned a master’s in operations management from the University of Arkansas, an MBA from the University of Massachusetts, and a doctorate in business administration from Florida State University. He has published more than 100 articles in various outlets including Human Relations, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Managerial Psychology, Career Development International, Educational and Psychological Measurement, and the Journal of Management Inquiry.

The authors also explored the moderating role of humor on the relationship between ethical leadership and frustration as well as its moderating effect on the mediational chain. 

The research team looked at the long-term effects of working for an unethical leader. Job demands are the physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of a job that require sustained cognitive and emotional effort to manage and are therefore associated with certain negative behavioral and psychological outcomes. Chronic job demands, like those associated with working for an unethical leader, may deplete and/or exhaust employees’ mental and physical resources.

Although not all job demands are negative and lead to stress, the research team was interested in studying the sustained cognitive and emotional effort needed to manage job demands under an unethical leader. The depletion of resources in the face of the demands of unethical behavior may explain the higher incidence of frustration, and that relationship may presage negative outcomes. The team also tested the effect of humor on the relationship between unethical leadership and frustration.

Data were collected in two separate surveys from 156 individuals working full time. Data collections were separated by six weeks to reduce common method variance. The measurement model was confirmed before we tested the moderated mediation model. 

Ethical leadership was found to be negatively related to employee frustration, and frustration mediated the relationships between ethical leadership and surface acting and positive mood (but not affective commitment). Humor moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and frustration such that when humor was low, the relationship was stronger.

There are strengths of this research that bear mentioning. First, this research advances theory by integrating a new mediator and moderator into the ethical leadership–outcome relationship. By confirming full mediation of ethical behavior on surface acting and positive mood through the influence of frustration, we offer support for frustration as a useful explanatory variable and call for more leadership research that includes this construct.

Further, this finding may indicate that individuals cognitively evaluate the level of ethicality in supervisory behaviors and develop a schema and behavioral scripts concerning future attitudes and behaviors as a result. Such perspectives may include an implicit determination that they must act more deliberately (surface act) when faced with a perceived break in the social contract. These results also encourage research into factors which may exacerbate or mitigate the effects of unethical leadership on outcomes. 

Valle, M., Kacmar, K. M., & Andrews, M. A. (2018) “Ethical leadership, frustration, and humor: a moderated-mediation model”, Leadership & Organiztion Development Journal, Vol. 39 Issue: 5, pp.665-678,

The article also explores the moderating effect of the leader-member exchange relationship on the abusive supervision-organizational deviance relationship. The article, titled “Abusive supervision, leader-member exchange, and moral disengagement: A moderated-mediation model of organizational deviance,” was published recently in the Journal of Social Psychology — .

This publication continues a stream of research into the causes and consequences of abusive supervision. In this research, the team found that one way employees who have been subjected to abusive behaviors by their supervisor might seek to restore a balanced social exchange relationship is by engaging in workplace deviance.

They found that abused subodinates sometimes cognitively disengage the act (organizational deviance) from their personal conceptions of morality (i.e., to downplay the harm caused by organizational deviance), and in doing so, give themselves permission to act against their moral beliefs. Interestingly, the team also found that when the relationship between leader and subordinate was very good, abusive supervision actually increased the likelihood t​hat the subordinate would engage in deviant behaviors. 

This latest work is one of over 90 articles that Valle has published in various outlets including Human Relations, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Managerial Psychology, Career Development International, Educational and Psychological Measurement and the Journal of Management Inquiry.  

ABSTRACT

This paper draws from social exchange theory and social cognitive theory to explore moral disengagement as a potential mediator of the relationship between abusive supervision and organizational deviance. We also explore the moderating effect of leader-member exchange (LMX) on this mediated
relationship. Results indicate that employees with abusive supervisors engaged in moral disengagement strategies and subsequently in organizational deviance behaviors. Additionally, this relationship was stronger for those higher in LMX. Important implications for management research and practice are discussed.

Additionally, recent research has shown that that the satisfaction of psychological needs is associated with positive outcomes such as task persistence, improved work performance (Baard, Deci, & Ryan, 2004; Bipp & van Dam, 2014), positive work attitudes, job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013). Conversely, decreased need fulfillment can significantly diminish employee, and subsequently organizational, functioning (Gagne´ & Deci, 2005). Therefore, the accurate assessment of individual needs is essential to understanding and managing individual behavior in organizations.

ABSTRACT:  The purpose of this research is threefold. First, we define and specify the psychological needs under investigation, briefly highlight extant research, and differentiate needs from other individual difference variables. Second, we demonstrate the limitations of one of the most highly cited psychological needs instruments and introduce a new needs model. Third, we develop and evaluate a multi-dimensional needs inventory using a multi-study design. The strengths and limitations of the proposed and tested model are discussed, as are implications for future research.

One of the first comprehensive operational measures of individual needs was the Manifest Needs Questionnaire (MNQ) (Steers & Braunstein, 1976). The MNQ includes scales to measure four distinct sub-categories of needs: nAff, nAch, nDom, and nAut. The Steers and Braunstein measure is based on the theoretical work of Murray (1938) and further developed by McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, and Lowell (1953). Although Steers and Braunstein contributed immensely to our understanding of the complexities of individual needs, scholars have criticized the MNQ for its unsatisfactory psychometric properties. This may explain why so little research has been conducted with regard to nAff and nAut utilizing the Steers and Braunstein (1976) measure. In addition, one of the more popular needs measures used by Bretz Ash, and Dreher (1989) requires payment of a fee for usage of the measure (Jackson, 1984) which further contributes to the paucity of research which includes all four needs dimensions

Study 1 demonstrated that criticism of the MNQ (Steers & Braunstein, 1976) is justified. We found, similar to other studies (Dreher & Mai-Dalton, 1983), that the psychometric properties of the MNQ were fair at best. For instance, only the nDom subscale of the MNQ demonstrated adequate reliability (i.e., above .70; Nunnally, 1978). Further, the nAch and nDom subscales of the MNQ were not found to be empirically distinct. Conceptually, the MNQ captures behaviors thought to reflect manifestations of individuals’ needs rather than actual workplace preferences. Therefore, on both empirical and conceptual grounds, we felt that the development of a comprehensive, psychometrically sound, and nonproprietary needs measure was necessary given that individuals’ needs have wide-reaching effects on individual behavior and organizational outcomes.

In Study 2, we developed items for the new needs measure utilizing the inductive method of scale development articulated by Hinkin (1995). The removal of items that had low item-to-total correlations, items that correlated significantly with the aggregate social desirability scale, and/or items that cross-loaded on more than one factor resulted in the removal of 25 items. The resulting nAff, nAch, nDom, and nDom scales consisted of five items, four items, five items, and four items, respectively. The psychometric properties of these remaining items were relatively strong in Study 2. Our new measure of needs is markedly improved from the MNQ evidenced in Study 1.

In Study 3, support was found for the hypotheses that nAch, nAff, and nDom were positively related to PA. With regard to the new measure itself, the psychometric properties were found to be adequate in a subsequent test with a new sample.  The resulting scales demonstrate strong convergent and discriminant validity.

The article, explores surface acting as a mediator in the relationships between the antecedents perceptions of organizational politics, agreeableness and proactive personality, and the outcomes stress, turnover intentions and job satisfaction. Previous research examining surface acting assessed behavior in light of employee-customer interactions. This research extended the study of surface acting by examining the mediating role of surface acting among new predictors including organizational politics, proactive personality, and agreeableness with stress, turnover intentions, and job satisfaction. Data were obtained via survey from 276 working adults, and responses were subjected to structural equation modeling to confirm the measurement model and test hypotheses.

Many employees put on a happy face to provide positive experiences for customers. This behavior is considered surface acting when employees modify outward displays to be consistent with organizationally prescribed roles. In this research, surface acting was found to mediate the relationships between perceptions of organizational politics and intent to turnover and satisfaction, and between proactive personality and intent to turnover and satisfaction. No mediating effect for surface acting was found between agreeableness and the outcomes. This research confirmed that individual differences and situational contingencies do affect surface acting in the workplace, and that surface acting does affect individual work-related outcomes. Managers need to be aware of the causes of surface acting, and likely consequences, so that they may be ready to offer assistance to employees who experience stress and dissatisfaction, and for whom turnover intentions become more likely.  

The Journal of Managerial Psychology has a unique focus on the social impact of managerial psychology and concerns itself with the wider aspects of human resource management derived from the application of psychology theory and practice. The aim is to promote a dialogue between theory and practice, and to disseminate high quality quantitative and qualitative research to student and practitioners of management, psychology and allied fields.

Journal 5-year Impact Factor – 1.919

The research was made possible, in part, by sabbatical funding through the ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ Faculty Research and Development committee.

“The dimensions of regulatory focus: Establishing the distinctiveness of prevention-focus and promotion-focus” with Suzanne Zivnuska (California State University – Chico) and K. Michele Kacmar (Texas State University) was presented at the Western Academy of Management Annual Conference in Portland, Ore.

Abstract:  The purpose of this research is to explore the distinctiveness of prevention-focus and promotion–focus, two theoretically distinct dimensions of regulatory focus that are undertaken to fulfill different goals.  In particular, we explore distinct triggers (mindfulness and leader member exchange) and outcomes (role overload and burnout) of each.  Our model is grounded in Regulatory Focus Theory (Higgins, 1997), and is tested with data collected at two separate times on individuals working full-time. Our findings revealed that mindfulness was positively related to both prevention- and promotion-focus while LMX was only positively related to promotion-focus.  We also found that prevention-focus mediated the relationship between mindfulness and role overload and burnout while promotion-focus mediated the relationship between both mindfulness and LMX and role overload, but not burnout.  Implications for future research and practice are discussed.   

“Political environments and ethical behavior” with K. Michele Kacmar (Texas State University) and Suzanne Zivnuska (California State University – Chico) was presented at the Southern Management Association Annual Conference in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Abstract: The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between perceptions of politics (POP) and subsequent moral disengagement and unethical behavior.  We examined both the direct relationship of POP with unethical behavior in organizations as well as the indirect relationship of POP on unethical behavior through the influence of moral disengagement.  We also investigated the moderating effect of regulatory focus (prevention-focus and promotion-focus) on the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical behavior.  Results indicated that POP was significantly related to our mediator, moral disengagement, which was significantly related to our dependent variable, unethical behavior. While prevention- and promotion-focus were significantly correlated with one another, only prevention-focus was significantly related to unethical behavior.  Implications for future research and organizational practice are discussed.

“Stakeholder perceptions of the impact of business research” with Kevin J. O’Mara (ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ) was presented at the Financial Education Association/Academy of Business Education Annual Conference in San Antonio.

Abstract:  The purpose of this study was to analyze stakeholder perceptions of research impact by assessing respondent perceptions of the value of research outputs associated with exploration and exploitation-focused business schools. Exploration-focused business schools generally apply their limited resources to the generation of new, discipline-based knowledge via cutting edge theoretical and empirical research, while exploitation-focused business schools generally apply their limited resources exploiting new knowledge to serve current academic programs (undergraduate and master’s) and assist engagement with the practitioner community.  Respondents from two stakeholder groups (academics and practitioners) completed a survey instrument which gauged research output impact along stakeholder awareness and stakeholder use dimensions.  Results are discussed with regard to differential stakeholder definitions of impact, and implications for defining impact within the broader community are offered.

ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ has been ranked among the top-20 part-time MBA programs in the nation since Bloomberg Businessweek debuted its rankings in 2007.

“We are delighted to be ranked as a top-20 program,” said Raghu Tadepalli, dean of ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ’s Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. “This ranking demonstrates the quality of our program as compared with programs at many of the most prestigious colleges and universities in the country. It is a testament to the success of our students and alumni and the impact they are making as ambitious and ethical business leaders. It is also a measure of the dedicated work of our faculty and staff, who have built an excellent student-centered program.”

Students surveyed by Bloomberg Businessweek answered questions about the program quality, effectiveness of career services, responsiveness of faculty and administrators and other factors. Alumni were asked about their job satisfaction, the amount their pay increased after the MBA program, and their personal reflections on their experience in the program.

The top 20 schools in the 2015 Bloomberg Businessweek Part-time MBA ranking include the following:

1. Northwestern University
2. Carnegie Mellon University
3. Rice University
4. Georgetown University
5. UCLA
6. University of Chicago
7. Southern Methodist University
8. Emory University
9. University of California – Berkeley
10. University of Southern California
11. University of Michigan
12. Villanova University
13. University of San Diego
14. Washington University in St. Louis
15. University of Texas at Austin
16. Rollins College
17. ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ
18. University of Washington
19. Ohio State University
20. University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Two other North Carolina programs were included among the top 74 schools in the part-time MBA ranking:

#30 Wake Forest University
#45 North Carolina State University

O’Mara and Cassill presented their paper titled, “Lessons on Designing and Delivering a Successful Inter-Graduate Program Study Abroad Course Mixing MBAs and Law Students:  Cuba and the Cayman Islands.”

The paper outlines the design process involved in executing a novel course engaging students from two separate graduate programs. The authors are not aware of a similar course being taught at a leading law school or business school. The purpose of the course was to demonstrate to MBAs the importance of understanding the legal aspects of business, particularly when pursuing global opportunities while also enabling law students to witness how business operates within a global context and its legal implications. In addition to the business/legal interplay, students were able to explore two very different societies operating under very different forms of governance. Although Cuba and the Cayman Islands are close neighbors in terms of geographic proximity, they are worlds apart with respect to economic and governmental systems. This contrast, along with the different educational backgrounds of the students, allowed for an interesting interaction of people, content and perspectives. The paper addresses the key execution issues involved with designing and delivering this unique course format.

is a multidisciplinary association whose mission includes “enhancing the teaching of business education and improving the learning environment through educational research, curriculum development and creative pedagogy; fostering interdisciplinary interaction through multidisciplinary meetings and programs; and encouraging and supporting faculty development.”

The research focuses on how individuals from different perspectives possess varied capabilities along eight dimensions of creativity. The paper contends that group creativity profiles should impact how innovation is taught to targeted groups.    

The research is being supported by a CATL grant.