Texas A&M University College Station - Psychology
Associate Professor, Rucks Department of Management at Louisiana State University
Higher Education
Jeremy
Beus
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Jeremy Beus is an Associate Professor in the Rucks Department of Management in the E.J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University. He received his Ph.D and M.S. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Texas A&M University and his B.S. in Psychology from Brigham Young University-Idaho. His primary research interests include organizational climate and workplace safety, with particular emphasis on climates for safety. His research has been published in a variety of outlets including the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Organizational Psychology Review, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, and Journal of Business and Psychology. Jeremy teaches undergraduate and doctoral courses in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at LSU.
Graduate Research Assistant and Instructor
I conducted research and taught upper-level undergraduate courses in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and writing-intensive lab sections of undergraduate statistics.
Associate Professor, Rucks Department of Management, E. J. Ourso College of Business
I conduct research in the primary areas of organizational climate, occupational safety, and performance variability and teach undergraduate and doctoral courses relating to Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management.
Assistant Professor, Rucks Department of Management, E.J. Ourso College of Business
Jeremy worked at Louisiana State University as a Assistant Professor, Rucks Department of Management, E.J. Ourso College of Business
Assistant Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology
I conducted research, supervised doctoral students, and taught doctoral courses in Organizational Psychology and Social Psychology and an upper-level undergraduate course in Industrial-Organizational Psychology.
B.S.
Psychology
M.S.
Industrial-Organizational Psychology
Thesis title - Moderators of the safety climate-injury relationship: A meta-analytic examination
Ph.D
Industrial-Organizational Psychology
Dissertation title - The psychological need for safety at work: A cybernetic perspective
U. S. Senator Phil Gramm Doctoral Fellowship
Recognition for "outstanding research, teaching, and mentoring"
Association of Former Students Distinguished Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research
Recognition for "academic achievement, professional dedication, and outstanding contributions to research at Texas A&M University"
Graduate Research Assistant and Instructor
I conducted research and taught upper-level undergraduate courses in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and writing-intensive lab sections of undergraduate statistics.
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Organizational Psychology Review
Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (1) what we currently know about workplace safety and (2) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research.
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Organizational Psychology Review
Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (1) what we currently know about workplace safety and (2) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research.
Journal of Management
Across cultures, the idea of money has dual positive and negative connotations. Consistent with this notion of duality, money-priming theory posits that the salience of money makes individuals work harder for themselves while also reducing the concern they have for others. Although research has tended to support these expectations, it has almost exclusively done so using between-person designs in controlled lab settings. To address these limitations in the literature, we used a within-person design in two work settings to test individual behavior change as a function of the salience of money. We did so using two samples of professional athletes and tested the extent to which priming individual pay affected both self-serving and cooperative behaviors. We operationalized the money prime in these samples as the final year of individuals’ employment contracts—a time when money is made particularly salient relative to surrounding years. Consistent with money-priming theory, within-person analyses using a sample of basketball players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed that self-serving behaviors significantly increased in the final contract year relative to surrounding years. However, we did not find that cooperative behaviors decreased during the final contract year. This pattern of results was replicated using a sample of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). These findings cumulatively suggest that although the salience of money is associated with increases in self-serving behaviors, it is not adversely associated with cooperation or team success.
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Organizational Psychology Review
Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (1) what we currently know about workplace safety and (2) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research.
Journal of Management
Across cultures, the idea of money has dual positive and negative connotations. Consistent with this notion of duality, money-priming theory posits that the salience of money makes individuals work harder for themselves while also reducing the concern they have for others. Although research has tended to support these expectations, it has almost exclusively done so using between-person designs in controlled lab settings. To address these limitations in the literature, we used a within-person design in two work settings to test individual behavior change as a function of the salience of money. We did so using two samples of professional athletes and tested the extent to which priming individual pay affected both self-serving and cooperative behaviors. We operationalized the money prime in these samples as the final year of individuals’ employment contracts—a time when money is made particularly salient relative to surrounding years. Consistent with money-priming theory, within-person analyses using a sample of basketball players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed that self-serving behaviors significantly increased in the final contract year relative to surrounding years. However, we did not find that cooperative behaviors decreased during the final contract year. This pattern of results was replicated using a sample of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). These findings cumulatively suggest that although the salience of money is associated with increases in self-serving behaviors, it is not adversely associated with cooperation or team success.
Personnel Psychology
Organizations often communicate seemingly paradoxical strategic imperatives to their employees that reflect a focus on promotion (take risks) and prevention (be prudent), as outlined by regulatory focus theory. When consistently emphasized and reinforced in an organization, these strategic inclinations can emerge as divergent climates for promotion and prevention that cloud the organization's perceived identity and reduce collective organizational commitment among employees. With a coherent organizational identity acting as both a sensemaking tool and a means of potential self‐enhancement for employees, we use social identity theory to hypothesize that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to employees’ collective organizational commitment and indirectly, negatively related to organizational productivity. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 107 manufacturing organizations, using polynomial regression with response surface analysis to examine how similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates relate to collective commitment and organizational productivity. Our analyses reveal that as organization‐level promotion and prevention climate scores became more similar, collective organizational commitment decreases. Furthermore, we find that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to organizational productivity via collective commitment. We reconcile these findings with the organizational paradox and ambidexterity literatures and implicate promising avenues for future research.
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Organizational Psychology Review
Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (1) what we currently know about workplace safety and (2) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research.
Journal of Management
Across cultures, the idea of money has dual positive and negative connotations. Consistent with this notion of duality, money-priming theory posits that the salience of money makes individuals work harder for themselves while also reducing the concern they have for others. Although research has tended to support these expectations, it has almost exclusively done so using between-person designs in controlled lab settings. To address these limitations in the literature, we used a within-person design in two work settings to test individual behavior change as a function of the salience of money. We did so using two samples of professional athletes and tested the extent to which priming individual pay affected both self-serving and cooperative behaviors. We operationalized the money prime in these samples as the final year of individuals’ employment contracts—a time when money is made particularly salient relative to surrounding years. Consistent with money-priming theory, within-person analyses using a sample of basketball players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed that self-serving behaviors significantly increased in the final contract year relative to surrounding years. However, we did not find that cooperative behaviors decreased during the final contract year. This pattern of results was replicated using a sample of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). These findings cumulatively suggest that although the salience of money is associated with increases in self-serving behaviors, it is not adversely associated with cooperation or team success.
Personnel Psychology
Organizations often communicate seemingly paradoxical strategic imperatives to their employees that reflect a focus on promotion (take risks) and prevention (be prudent), as outlined by regulatory focus theory. When consistently emphasized and reinforced in an organization, these strategic inclinations can emerge as divergent climates for promotion and prevention that cloud the organization's perceived identity and reduce collective organizational commitment among employees. With a coherent organizational identity acting as both a sensemaking tool and a means of potential self‐enhancement for employees, we use social identity theory to hypothesize that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to employees’ collective organizational commitment and indirectly, negatively related to organizational productivity. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 107 manufacturing organizations, using polynomial regression with response surface analysis to examine how similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates relate to collective commitment and organizational productivity. Our analyses reveal that as organization‐level promotion and prevention climate scores became more similar, collective organizational commitment decreases. Furthermore, we find that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to organizational productivity via collective commitment. We reconcile these findings with the organizational paradox and ambidexterity literatures and implicate promising avenues for future research.
Journal of Organizational Behavior
The successful performance adjustment of team newcomers is an increasingly important consideration given the prevalence of job-changing and the uncertainty associated with starting work in a new team setting. Consequently, using sensemaking and uncertainty reduction theories as a conceptual basis, the present study tested work experience as a potential resource for newcomer performance adjustment in teams. Specifically, we tested work experience as a multidimensional predictor of both initial newcomer performance and the rate of performance change after team entry. Hypotheses were tested using longitudinal newcomer performance data in the context of professional basketball teams. Although the traditional quantitative indicators of the length and amount of work experience were not meaningfully associated with newcomer performance adjustment, their interaction was. In addition, the qualitative indicator of newcomers’ past transition experience revealed a significant, positive association with the rate of newcomer performance improvement following team entry. These results suggest that work experience is a meaningful facilitator of newcomer adjustment in teams and emphasize the dual consideration of both quantitative and qualitative work experiences. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Organizational Psychology Review
Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (1) what we currently know about workplace safety and (2) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research.
Journal of Management
Across cultures, the idea of money has dual positive and negative connotations. Consistent with this notion of duality, money-priming theory posits that the salience of money makes individuals work harder for themselves while also reducing the concern they have for others. Although research has tended to support these expectations, it has almost exclusively done so using between-person designs in controlled lab settings. To address these limitations in the literature, we used a within-person design in two work settings to test individual behavior change as a function of the salience of money. We did so using two samples of professional athletes and tested the extent to which priming individual pay affected both self-serving and cooperative behaviors. We operationalized the money prime in these samples as the final year of individuals’ employment contracts—a time when money is made particularly salient relative to surrounding years. Consistent with money-priming theory, within-person analyses using a sample of basketball players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed that self-serving behaviors significantly increased in the final contract year relative to surrounding years. However, we did not find that cooperative behaviors decreased during the final contract year. This pattern of results was replicated using a sample of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). These findings cumulatively suggest that although the salience of money is associated with increases in self-serving behaviors, it is not adversely associated with cooperation or team success.
Personnel Psychology
Organizations often communicate seemingly paradoxical strategic imperatives to their employees that reflect a focus on promotion (take risks) and prevention (be prudent), as outlined by regulatory focus theory. When consistently emphasized and reinforced in an organization, these strategic inclinations can emerge as divergent climates for promotion and prevention that cloud the organization's perceived identity and reduce collective organizational commitment among employees. With a coherent organizational identity acting as both a sensemaking tool and a means of potential self‐enhancement for employees, we use social identity theory to hypothesize that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to employees’ collective organizational commitment and indirectly, negatively related to organizational productivity. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 107 manufacturing organizations, using polynomial regression with response surface analysis to examine how similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates relate to collective commitment and organizational productivity. Our analyses reveal that as organization‐level promotion and prevention climate scores became more similar, collective organizational commitment decreases. Furthermore, we find that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to organizational productivity via collective commitment. We reconcile these findings with the organizational paradox and ambidexterity literatures and implicate promising avenues for future research.
Journal of Organizational Behavior
The successful performance adjustment of team newcomers is an increasingly important consideration given the prevalence of job-changing and the uncertainty associated with starting work in a new team setting. Consequently, using sensemaking and uncertainty reduction theories as a conceptual basis, the present study tested work experience as a potential resource for newcomer performance adjustment in teams. Specifically, we tested work experience as a multidimensional predictor of both initial newcomer performance and the rate of performance change after team entry. Hypotheses were tested using longitudinal newcomer performance data in the context of professional basketball teams. Although the traditional quantitative indicators of the length and amount of work experience were not meaningfully associated with newcomer performance adjustment, their interaction was. In addition, the qualitative indicator of newcomers’ past transition experience revealed a significant, positive association with the rate of newcomer performance improvement following team entry. These results suggest that work experience is a meaningful facilitator of newcomer adjustment in teams and emphasize the dual consideration of both quantitative and qualitative work experiences. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Journal of Applied Psychology
Despite the growing number of meta-analyses published on the subject of workplace mistreatment and the expectation that women and racial minorities are mistreated more frequently than men and Whites, the degree of subgroup differences in perceived workplace mistreatment is unknown. To address this gap in the literature, we meta-analyzed the magnitude of sex and race differences in perceptions of workplace mistreatment (e.g., harassment, discrimination, bullying, incivility). Results indicate that women perceive more sex-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s sex) in the workplace than men (δ = .46; k = 43), whereas women and men report comparable perceptions of all other forms of mistreatment (δ = .02; k = 300). Similarly, although racial minorities perceive more race-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s race) in the workplace than Whites (δ = .71; k = 18), results indicate smaller race differences in all other forms of workplace mistreatment (δ = .10; k = 61). Results also indicate that sex and race differences have mostly decreased over time, although for some forms of mistreatment, subgroup differences have increased over time. We conclude by offering explanations for the observed subgroup differences in workplace mistreatment and outline directions for future research.
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Organizational Psychology Review
Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (1) what we currently know about workplace safety and (2) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research.
Journal of Management
Across cultures, the idea of money has dual positive and negative connotations. Consistent with this notion of duality, money-priming theory posits that the salience of money makes individuals work harder for themselves while also reducing the concern they have for others. Although research has tended to support these expectations, it has almost exclusively done so using between-person designs in controlled lab settings. To address these limitations in the literature, we used a within-person design in two work settings to test individual behavior change as a function of the salience of money. We did so using two samples of professional athletes and tested the extent to which priming individual pay affected both self-serving and cooperative behaviors. We operationalized the money prime in these samples as the final year of individuals’ employment contracts—a time when money is made particularly salient relative to surrounding years. Consistent with money-priming theory, within-person analyses using a sample of basketball players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed that self-serving behaviors significantly increased in the final contract year relative to surrounding years. However, we did not find that cooperative behaviors decreased during the final contract year. This pattern of results was replicated using a sample of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). These findings cumulatively suggest that although the salience of money is associated with increases in self-serving behaviors, it is not adversely associated with cooperation or team success.
Personnel Psychology
Organizations often communicate seemingly paradoxical strategic imperatives to their employees that reflect a focus on promotion (take risks) and prevention (be prudent), as outlined by regulatory focus theory. When consistently emphasized and reinforced in an organization, these strategic inclinations can emerge as divergent climates for promotion and prevention that cloud the organization's perceived identity and reduce collective organizational commitment among employees. With a coherent organizational identity acting as both a sensemaking tool and a means of potential self‐enhancement for employees, we use social identity theory to hypothesize that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to employees’ collective organizational commitment and indirectly, negatively related to organizational productivity. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 107 manufacturing organizations, using polynomial regression with response surface analysis to examine how similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates relate to collective commitment and organizational productivity. Our analyses reveal that as organization‐level promotion and prevention climate scores became more similar, collective organizational commitment decreases. Furthermore, we find that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to organizational productivity via collective commitment. We reconcile these findings with the organizational paradox and ambidexterity literatures and implicate promising avenues for future research.
Journal of Organizational Behavior
The successful performance adjustment of team newcomers is an increasingly important consideration given the prevalence of job-changing and the uncertainty associated with starting work in a new team setting. Consequently, using sensemaking and uncertainty reduction theories as a conceptual basis, the present study tested work experience as a potential resource for newcomer performance adjustment in teams. Specifically, we tested work experience as a multidimensional predictor of both initial newcomer performance and the rate of performance change after team entry. Hypotheses were tested using longitudinal newcomer performance data in the context of professional basketball teams. Although the traditional quantitative indicators of the length and amount of work experience were not meaningfully associated with newcomer performance adjustment, their interaction was. In addition, the qualitative indicator of newcomers’ past transition experience revealed a significant, positive association with the rate of newcomer performance improvement following team entry. These results suggest that work experience is a meaningful facilitator of newcomer adjustment in teams and emphasize the dual consideration of both quantitative and qualitative work experiences. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Journal of Applied Psychology
Despite the growing number of meta-analyses published on the subject of workplace mistreatment and the expectation that women and racial minorities are mistreated more frequently than men and Whites, the degree of subgroup differences in perceived workplace mistreatment is unknown. To address this gap in the literature, we meta-analyzed the magnitude of sex and race differences in perceptions of workplace mistreatment (e.g., harassment, discrimination, bullying, incivility). Results indicate that women perceive more sex-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s sex) in the workplace than men (δ = .46; k = 43), whereas women and men report comparable perceptions of all other forms of mistreatment (δ = .02; k = 300). Similarly, although racial minorities perceive more race-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s race) in the workplace than Whites (δ = .71; k = 18), results indicate smaller race differences in all other forms of workplace mistreatment (δ = .10; k = 61). Results also indicate that sex and race differences have mostly decreased over time, although for some forms of mistreatment, subgroup differences have increased over time. We conclude by offering explanations for the observed subgroup differences in workplace mistreatment and outline directions for future research.
Journal of Applied Psychology
The purpose of this meta-analysis was to address unanswered questions regarding the associations between personality and workplace safety by (a) clarifying the magnitude and meaning of these associations with both broad and facet-level personality traits, (b) delineating how personality is associated with workplace safety, and (c) testing the relative importance of personality in comparison to perceptions of the social context of safety (i.e., safety climate) in predicting safety-related behavior. Our results revealed that whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively associated with unsafe behaviors, extraversion and neuroticism were positively associated with them. Of these traits, agreeableness accounted for the largest proportion of explained variance in safety-related behavior and openness to experience was unrelated. At the facet level, sensation seeking, altruism, anger, and impulsiveness were all meaningfully associated with safety-related behavior, though sensation seeking was the only facet that demonstrated a stronger relationship than its parent trait (i.e., extraversion). In addition, meta-analytic path modeling supported the theoretical expectation that personality’s associations with accidents are mediated by safety-related behavior. Finally, although safety climate perceptions accounted for the majority of explained variance in safety-related behavior, personality traits (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism) still accounted for a unique and substantive proportion of the explained variance. Taken together, these results substantiate the value of considering personality traits as key correlates of workplace safety.
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Organizational Psychology Review
Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (1) what we currently know about workplace safety and (2) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research.
Journal of Management
Across cultures, the idea of money has dual positive and negative connotations. Consistent with this notion of duality, money-priming theory posits that the salience of money makes individuals work harder for themselves while also reducing the concern they have for others. Although research has tended to support these expectations, it has almost exclusively done so using between-person designs in controlled lab settings. To address these limitations in the literature, we used a within-person design in two work settings to test individual behavior change as a function of the salience of money. We did so using two samples of professional athletes and tested the extent to which priming individual pay affected both self-serving and cooperative behaviors. We operationalized the money prime in these samples as the final year of individuals’ employment contracts—a time when money is made particularly salient relative to surrounding years. Consistent with money-priming theory, within-person analyses using a sample of basketball players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed that self-serving behaviors significantly increased in the final contract year relative to surrounding years. However, we did not find that cooperative behaviors decreased during the final contract year. This pattern of results was replicated using a sample of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). These findings cumulatively suggest that although the salience of money is associated with increases in self-serving behaviors, it is not adversely associated with cooperation or team success.
Personnel Psychology
Organizations often communicate seemingly paradoxical strategic imperatives to their employees that reflect a focus on promotion (take risks) and prevention (be prudent), as outlined by regulatory focus theory. When consistently emphasized and reinforced in an organization, these strategic inclinations can emerge as divergent climates for promotion and prevention that cloud the organization's perceived identity and reduce collective organizational commitment among employees. With a coherent organizational identity acting as both a sensemaking tool and a means of potential self‐enhancement for employees, we use social identity theory to hypothesize that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to employees’ collective organizational commitment and indirectly, negatively related to organizational productivity. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 107 manufacturing organizations, using polynomial regression with response surface analysis to examine how similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates relate to collective commitment and organizational productivity. Our analyses reveal that as organization‐level promotion and prevention climate scores became more similar, collective organizational commitment decreases. Furthermore, we find that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to organizational productivity via collective commitment. We reconcile these findings with the organizational paradox and ambidexterity literatures and implicate promising avenues for future research.
Journal of Organizational Behavior
The successful performance adjustment of team newcomers is an increasingly important consideration given the prevalence of job-changing and the uncertainty associated with starting work in a new team setting. Consequently, using sensemaking and uncertainty reduction theories as a conceptual basis, the present study tested work experience as a potential resource for newcomer performance adjustment in teams. Specifically, we tested work experience as a multidimensional predictor of both initial newcomer performance and the rate of performance change after team entry. Hypotheses were tested using longitudinal newcomer performance data in the context of professional basketball teams. Although the traditional quantitative indicators of the length and amount of work experience were not meaningfully associated with newcomer performance adjustment, their interaction was. In addition, the qualitative indicator of newcomers’ past transition experience revealed a significant, positive association with the rate of newcomer performance improvement following team entry. These results suggest that work experience is a meaningful facilitator of newcomer adjustment in teams and emphasize the dual consideration of both quantitative and qualitative work experiences. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Journal of Applied Psychology
Despite the growing number of meta-analyses published on the subject of workplace mistreatment and the expectation that women and racial minorities are mistreated more frequently than men and Whites, the degree of subgroup differences in perceived workplace mistreatment is unknown. To address this gap in the literature, we meta-analyzed the magnitude of sex and race differences in perceptions of workplace mistreatment (e.g., harassment, discrimination, bullying, incivility). Results indicate that women perceive more sex-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s sex) in the workplace than men (δ = .46; k = 43), whereas women and men report comparable perceptions of all other forms of mistreatment (δ = .02; k = 300). Similarly, although racial minorities perceive more race-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s race) in the workplace than Whites (δ = .71; k = 18), results indicate smaller race differences in all other forms of workplace mistreatment (δ = .10; k = 61). Results also indicate that sex and race differences have mostly decreased over time, although for some forms of mistreatment, subgroup differences have increased over time. We conclude by offering explanations for the observed subgroup differences in workplace mistreatment and outline directions for future research.
Journal of Applied Psychology
The purpose of this meta-analysis was to address unanswered questions regarding the associations between personality and workplace safety by (a) clarifying the magnitude and meaning of these associations with both broad and facet-level personality traits, (b) delineating how personality is associated with workplace safety, and (c) testing the relative importance of personality in comparison to perceptions of the social context of safety (i.e., safety climate) in predicting safety-related behavior. Our results revealed that whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively associated with unsafe behaviors, extraversion and neuroticism were positively associated with them. Of these traits, agreeableness accounted for the largest proportion of explained variance in safety-related behavior and openness to experience was unrelated. At the facet level, sensation seeking, altruism, anger, and impulsiveness were all meaningfully associated with safety-related behavior, though sensation seeking was the only facet that demonstrated a stronger relationship than its parent trait (i.e., extraversion). In addition, meta-analytic path modeling supported the theoretical expectation that personality’s associations with accidents are mediated by safety-related behavior. Finally, although safety climate perceptions accounted for the majority of explained variance in safety-related behavior, personality traits (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism) still accounted for a unique and substantive proportion of the explained variance. Taken together, these results substantiate the value of considering personality traits as key correlates of workplace safety.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology
Why do individuals choose to work safely in some instances and unsafely in others? Though this inherently within-person question is straightforward, the preponderance of between-person theory and research in the workplace safety literature is not equipped to answer it. Additionally, the limited way in which safety-related behaviors tend to be conceptualized further restricts understanding of why individuals vary in their safety-related actions. We use a goal-focused approach to conceptually address this question of behavioral variability and contribute to workplace safety research in two key ways. First, we establish an updated typology of safety-related behaviors that differentiates behaviors based on goal choice (i.e., safe versus unsafe behaviors), goal-directedness (i.e., intentional versus unintentional behaviors), and the means of goal pursuit (i.e., commission versus omission and promotion versus prevention-focused behaviors). Second, using an expectancy-value theoretical framework to explain variance in goal choice, we establish within-person propositions stating that safety-related goal choice and subsequent behaviors are a function of the target of safety-related behaviors, the instrumentality and resource requirement of behaviors, and the perceived severity, likelihood, and immediacy of the threats associated with behaviors. Taken together, we define what safety-related behaviors are, explain how they differ, and offer propositions concerning when and why they may vary within-persons. We explore potential between-person moderators of our theoretical propositions and discuss the practical implications of our typology and process model of safety-related behavior.
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Organizational Psychology Review
Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (1) what we currently know about workplace safety and (2) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research.
Journal of Management
Across cultures, the idea of money has dual positive and negative connotations. Consistent with this notion of duality, money-priming theory posits that the salience of money makes individuals work harder for themselves while also reducing the concern they have for others. Although research has tended to support these expectations, it has almost exclusively done so using between-person designs in controlled lab settings. To address these limitations in the literature, we used a within-person design in two work settings to test individual behavior change as a function of the salience of money. We did so using two samples of professional athletes and tested the extent to which priming individual pay affected both self-serving and cooperative behaviors. We operationalized the money prime in these samples as the final year of individuals’ employment contracts—a time when money is made particularly salient relative to surrounding years. Consistent with money-priming theory, within-person analyses using a sample of basketball players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed that self-serving behaviors significantly increased in the final contract year relative to surrounding years. However, we did not find that cooperative behaviors decreased during the final contract year. This pattern of results was replicated using a sample of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). These findings cumulatively suggest that although the salience of money is associated with increases in self-serving behaviors, it is not adversely associated with cooperation or team success.
Personnel Psychology
Organizations often communicate seemingly paradoxical strategic imperatives to their employees that reflect a focus on promotion (take risks) and prevention (be prudent), as outlined by regulatory focus theory. When consistently emphasized and reinforced in an organization, these strategic inclinations can emerge as divergent climates for promotion and prevention that cloud the organization's perceived identity and reduce collective organizational commitment among employees. With a coherent organizational identity acting as both a sensemaking tool and a means of potential self‐enhancement for employees, we use social identity theory to hypothesize that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to employees’ collective organizational commitment and indirectly, negatively related to organizational productivity. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 107 manufacturing organizations, using polynomial regression with response surface analysis to examine how similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates relate to collective commitment and organizational productivity. Our analyses reveal that as organization‐level promotion and prevention climate scores became more similar, collective organizational commitment decreases. Furthermore, we find that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to organizational productivity via collective commitment. We reconcile these findings with the organizational paradox and ambidexterity literatures and implicate promising avenues for future research.
Journal of Organizational Behavior
The successful performance adjustment of team newcomers is an increasingly important consideration given the prevalence of job-changing and the uncertainty associated with starting work in a new team setting. Consequently, using sensemaking and uncertainty reduction theories as a conceptual basis, the present study tested work experience as a potential resource for newcomer performance adjustment in teams. Specifically, we tested work experience as a multidimensional predictor of both initial newcomer performance and the rate of performance change after team entry. Hypotheses were tested using longitudinal newcomer performance data in the context of professional basketball teams. Although the traditional quantitative indicators of the length and amount of work experience were not meaningfully associated with newcomer performance adjustment, their interaction was. In addition, the qualitative indicator of newcomers’ past transition experience revealed a significant, positive association with the rate of newcomer performance improvement following team entry. These results suggest that work experience is a meaningful facilitator of newcomer adjustment in teams and emphasize the dual consideration of both quantitative and qualitative work experiences. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Journal of Applied Psychology
Despite the growing number of meta-analyses published on the subject of workplace mistreatment and the expectation that women and racial minorities are mistreated more frequently than men and Whites, the degree of subgroup differences in perceived workplace mistreatment is unknown. To address this gap in the literature, we meta-analyzed the magnitude of sex and race differences in perceptions of workplace mistreatment (e.g., harassment, discrimination, bullying, incivility). Results indicate that women perceive more sex-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s sex) in the workplace than men (δ = .46; k = 43), whereas women and men report comparable perceptions of all other forms of mistreatment (δ = .02; k = 300). Similarly, although racial minorities perceive more race-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s race) in the workplace than Whites (δ = .71; k = 18), results indicate smaller race differences in all other forms of workplace mistreatment (δ = .10; k = 61). Results also indicate that sex and race differences have mostly decreased over time, although for some forms of mistreatment, subgroup differences have increased over time. We conclude by offering explanations for the observed subgroup differences in workplace mistreatment and outline directions for future research.
Journal of Applied Psychology
The purpose of this meta-analysis was to address unanswered questions regarding the associations between personality and workplace safety by (a) clarifying the magnitude and meaning of these associations with both broad and facet-level personality traits, (b) delineating how personality is associated with workplace safety, and (c) testing the relative importance of personality in comparison to perceptions of the social context of safety (i.e., safety climate) in predicting safety-related behavior. Our results revealed that whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively associated with unsafe behaviors, extraversion and neuroticism were positively associated with them. Of these traits, agreeableness accounted for the largest proportion of explained variance in safety-related behavior and openness to experience was unrelated. At the facet level, sensation seeking, altruism, anger, and impulsiveness were all meaningfully associated with safety-related behavior, though sensation seeking was the only facet that demonstrated a stronger relationship than its parent trait (i.e., extraversion). In addition, meta-analytic path modeling supported the theoretical expectation that personality’s associations with accidents are mediated by safety-related behavior. Finally, although safety climate perceptions accounted for the majority of explained variance in safety-related behavior, personality traits (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism) still accounted for a unique and substantive proportion of the explained variance. Taken together, these results substantiate the value of considering personality traits as key correlates of workplace safety.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology
Why do individuals choose to work safely in some instances and unsafely in others? Though this inherently within-person question is straightforward, the preponderance of between-person theory and research in the workplace safety literature is not equipped to answer it. Additionally, the limited way in which safety-related behaviors tend to be conceptualized further restricts understanding of why individuals vary in their safety-related actions. We use a goal-focused approach to conceptually address this question of behavioral variability and contribute to workplace safety research in two key ways. First, we establish an updated typology of safety-related behaviors that differentiates behaviors based on goal choice (i.e., safe versus unsafe behaviors), goal-directedness (i.e., intentional versus unintentional behaviors), and the means of goal pursuit (i.e., commission versus omission and promotion versus prevention-focused behaviors). Second, using an expectancy-value theoretical framework to explain variance in goal choice, we establish within-person propositions stating that safety-related goal choice and subsequent behaviors are a function of the target of safety-related behaviors, the instrumentality and resource requirement of behaviors, and the perceived severity, likelihood, and immediacy of the threats associated with behaviors. Taken together, we define what safety-related behaviors are, explain how they differ, and offer propositions concerning when and why they may vary within-persons. We explore potential between-person moderators of our theoretical propositions and discuss the practical implications of our typology and process model of safety-related behavior.
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology
Individual climate perceptions (i.e., psychological climates) are often aggregated to form group-level climates without considering the equivalence of the meaning of climate within groups. Confirming perceptual equivalence across faultlines—within-group dividing lines that can create subgroups based on the alignment of group member attributes (Lau & Murnighan, 1998)—is a particularly important concern given that sensemaking processes and subsequent psychological climates are likely to differ across faultlines. Using safety climate as an exemplar, we demonstrate the importance of assessing qualitative perceptual equivalence (i.e., perceptions of what a climate is) within groups instead of solely relying on traditional agreement indices (e.g., rwg, ICC) to make aggregation decisions. Specifically, we tested for perceptual equivalence across context-specific faultlines (hierarchical level and organizational heritage) in a large, multi-national organization using multi-group hierarchical confirmatory factor analyses and found that although traditional agreement indices universally supported aggregation decisions, tests of perceptual equivalence in 8 of 12 separate subgroup analyses failed to support aggregation. These findings confirm the importance of testing for perceptual equivalence within groups before aggregating psychological climates to the group level.
Personnel Psychology
Despite a large and growing literature on workplace discrimination, there has been a myopic focus on the direct relationships between discrimination and a common set of outcomes. The aim of this meta-analytic review was both to challenge and advance current understanding of workplace discrimination and its associations with outcomes by identifying the pathways through which discrimination affects outcomes, examining boundary conditions to explain when discrimination is most harmful for employees, and exploring a potential third variable explanation for discrimination–outcome relationships. Mediation tests indicated that workplace discrimination is associated with employee outcomes through both job stress and justice. Moderator analyses showed that discrimination appears to be most detrimental when it is observed rather than personally experienced, interpersonal rather than formal, and measured broadly rather than specifically. We also found that discrimination–outcome relationships differ across work and non-work contexts and as a function of the social identity targeted by discrimination. Discrimination generally explained meaningful incremental variance in outcomes after controlling for the effects of negative affectivity, but the relationships between discrimination and health were substantially decreased. We conclude by offering a constructive critique of the empirical discrimination literature and by detailing an agenda for future research
Organizational Psychology Review
Unsafe work environments have clear consequences for both individuals and organizations. As such, an ever-expanding research base is providing a greater understanding of the factors that affect workplace safety across organizational levels. However, despite scientific advances, the workplace safety literature suffers from a lack of theoretical and empirical integration that makes it difficult for organizational scientists to gain a comprehensive sense of (1) what we currently know about workplace safety and (2) what we have yet to learn. This review addresses these shortcomings. First, the authors provide a formal definition of workplace safety and then create an integrated safety model (ISM) based on existing theory to summarize current theoretical expectations with regard to workplace safety. Second, the authors conduct a targeted review of the safety literature and compare extant empirical findings with the ISM. Finally, the authors use the results of this review to articulate gaps between theory and research and then make recommendations for both theoretical and empirical improvements to guide and integrate future workplace safety research.
Journal of Management
Across cultures, the idea of money has dual positive and negative connotations. Consistent with this notion of duality, money-priming theory posits that the salience of money makes individuals work harder for themselves while also reducing the concern they have for others. Although research has tended to support these expectations, it has almost exclusively done so using between-person designs in controlled lab settings. To address these limitations in the literature, we used a within-person design in two work settings to test individual behavior change as a function of the salience of money. We did so using two samples of professional athletes and tested the extent to which priming individual pay affected both self-serving and cooperative behaviors. We operationalized the money prime in these samples as the final year of individuals’ employment contracts—a time when money is made particularly salient relative to surrounding years. Consistent with money-priming theory, within-person analyses using a sample of basketball players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed that self-serving behaviors significantly increased in the final contract year relative to surrounding years. However, we did not find that cooperative behaviors decreased during the final contract year. This pattern of results was replicated using a sample of professional hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). These findings cumulatively suggest that although the salience of money is associated with increases in self-serving behaviors, it is not adversely associated with cooperation or team success.
Personnel Psychology
Organizations often communicate seemingly paradoxical strategic imperatives to their employees that reflect a focus on promotion (take risks) and prevention (be prudent), as outlined by regulatory focus theory. When consistently emphasized and reinforced in an organization, these strategic inclinations can emerge as divergent climates for promotion and prevention that cloud the organization's perceived identity and reduce collective organizational commitment among employees. With a coherent organizational identity acting as both a sensemaking tool and a means of potential self‐enhancement for employees, we use social identity theory to hypothesize that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to employees’ collective organizational commitment and indirectly, negatively related to organizational productivity. We test our hypotheses in a sample of 107 manufacturing organizations, using polynomial regression with response surface analysis to examine how similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates relate to collective commitment and organizational productivity. Our analyses reveal that as organization‐level promotion and prevention climate scores became more similar, collective organizational commitment decreases. Furthermore, we find that similarly emphasized promotion and prevention climates are negatively related to organizational productivity via collective commitment. We reconcile these findings with the organizational paradox and ambidexterity literatures and implicate promising avenues for future research.
Journal of Organizational Behavior
The successful performance adjustment of team newcomers is an increasingly important consideration given the prevalence of job-changing and the uncertainty associated with starting work in a new team setting. Consequently, using sensemaking and uncertainty reduction theories as a conceptual basis, the present study tested work experience as a potential resource for newcomer performance adjustment in teams. Specifically, we tested work experience as a multidimensional predictor of both initial newcomer performance and the rate of performance change after team entry. Hypotheses were tested using longitudinal newcomer performance data in the context of professional basketball teams. Although the traditional quantitative indicators of the length and amount of work experience were not meaningfully associated with newcomer performance adjustment, their interaction was. In addition, the qualitative indicator of newcomers’ past transition experience revealed a significant, positive association with the rate of newcomer performance improvement following team entry. These results suggest that work experience is a meaningful facilitator of newcomer adjustment in teams and emphasize the dual consideration of both quantitative and qualitative work experiences. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Journal of Applied Psychology
Despite the growing number of meta-analyses published on the subject of workplace mistreatment and the expectation that women and racial minorities are mistreated more frequently than men and Whites, the degree of subgroup differences in perceived workplace mistreatment is unknown. To address this gap in the literature, we meta-analyzed the magnitude of sex and race differences in perceptions of workplace mistreatment (e.g., harassment, discrimination, bullying, incivility). Results indicate that women perceive more sex-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s sex) in the workplace than men (δ = .46; k = 43), whereas women and men report comparable perceptions of all other forms of mistreatment (δ = .02; k = 300). Similarly, although racial minorities perceive more race-based mistreatment (i.e., mistreatment that explicitly targets a person’s race) in the workplace than Whites (δ = .71; k = 18), results indicate smaller race differences in all other forms of workplace mistreatment (δ = .10; k = 61). Results also indicate that sex and race differences have mostly decreased over time, although for some forms of mistreatment, subgroup differences have increased over time. We conclude by offering explanations for the observed subgroup differences in workplace mistreatment and outline directions for future research.
Journal of Applied Psychology
The purpose of this meta-analysis was to address unanswered questions regarding the associations between personality and workplace safety by (a) clarifying the magnitude and meaning of these associations with both broad and facet-level personality traits, (b) delineating how personality is associated with workplace safety, and (c) testing the relative importance of personality in comparison to perceptions of the social context of safety (i.e., safety climate) in predicting safety-related behavior. Our results revealed that whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively associated with unsafe behaviors, extraversion and neuroticism were positively associated with them. Of these traits, agreeableness accounted for the largest proportion of explained variance in safety-related behavior and openness to experience was unrelated. At the facet level, sensation seeking, altruism, anger, and impulsiveness were all meaningfully associated with safety-related behavior, though sensation seeking was the only facet that demonstrated a stronger relationship than its parent trait (i.e., extraversion). In addition, meta-analytic path modeling supported the theoretical expectation that personality’s associations with accidents are mediated by safety-related behavior. Finally, although safety climate perceptions accounted for the majority of explained variance in safety-related behavior, personality traits (i.e., agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism) still accounted for a unique and substantive proportion of the explained variance. Taken together, these results substantiate the value of considering personality traits as key correlates of workplace safety.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology
Why do individuals choose to work safely in some instances and unsafely in others? Though this inherently within-person question is straightforward, the preponderance of between-person theory and research in the workplace safety literature is not equipped to answer it. Additionally, the limited way in which safety-related behaviors tend to be conceptualized further restricts understanding of why individuals vary in their safety-related actions. We use a goal-focused approach to conceptually address this question of behavioral variability and contribute to workplace safety research in two key ways. First, we establish an updated typology of safety-related behaviors that differentiates behaviors based on goal choice (i.e., safe versus unsafe behaviors), goal-directedness (i.e., intentional versus unintentional behaviors), and the means of goal pursuit (i.e., commission versus omission and promotion versus prevention-focused behaviors). Second, using an expectancy-value theoretical framework to explain variance in goal choice, we establish within-person propositions stating that safety-related goal choice and subsequent behaviors are a function of the target of safety-related behaviors, the instrumentality and resource requirement of behaviors, and the perceived severity, likelihood, and immediacy of the threats associated with behaviors. Taken together, we define what safety-related behaviors are, explain how they differ, and offer propositions concerning when and why they may vary within-persons. We explore potential between-person moderators of our theoretical propositions and discuss the practical implications of our typology and process model of safety-related behavior.
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology
Individual climate perceptions (i.e., psychological climates) are often aggregated to form group-level climates without considering the equivalence of the meaning of climate within groups. Confirming perceptual equivalence across faultlines—within-group dividing lines that can create subgroups based on the alignment of group member attributes (Lau & Murnighan, 1998)—is a particularly important concern given that sensemaking processes and subsequent psychological climates are likely to differ across faultlines. Using safety climate as an exemplar, we demonstrate the importance of assessing qualitative perceptual equivalence (i.e., perceptions of what a climate is) within groups instead of solely relying on traditional agreement indices (e.g., rwg, ICC) to make aggregation decisions. Specifically, we tested for perceptual equivalence across context-specific faultlines (hierarchical level and organizational heritage) in a large, multi-national organization using multi-group hierarchical confirmatory factor analyses and found that although traditional agreement indices universally supported aggregation decisions, tests of perceptual equivalence in 8 of 12 separate subgroup analyses failed to support aggregation. These findings confirm the importance of testing for perceptual equivalence within groups before aggregating psychological climates to the group level.
Journal of Management
Although safety climate research has increased in recent years, persisting conceptual ambiguity not only raises questions about what safety climate really is—as operationalized in the literature— but also inhibits increased scientific understanding of the construct. Consequently, using climate theory and research as a conceptual basis, we inductively articulated safety climate’s general content domain by identifying seven core indicators of safety’s perceived workplace priority: leader safety commitment, safety communication, safety training, coworker safety practices, safety equipment and housekeeping, safety involvement, and safety rewards. These indicators formed the basis for a generalized safety climate measure that we designed for use across organizations, industries, and construct levels. We then conducted a multilevel construct validation of safety climate using the newly created measure in two separate studies. Results from five samples spanning multiple organizations, industries, and cultural settings revealed that the identified safety climate indicators were parsimoniously explained by an overarching safety climate factor at the individual and workgroup levels. In addition, multilevel homology tests indicated that safety climate’s associations with past safety incidents were nearly two times stronger at the workgroup level relative to the individual level, although this difference was not statistically significant. Finally, workgroup-level validity evidence demonstrated expected associations between safety climate and organization-reported pre- and postsurvey safety incidents. On the basis of this supportive evidence, we recommend that this conceptualization and measure of safety climate be adopted in research and practice to facilitate future scientific progress.
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