The study examined the number of significant factors in the Hackman and Oldham (1980) job characteristics model. The original factors were: Skill Variety, Task Significance, Task Identity, Autonomy, and Feedback. Scores on these dimensions for 84 employees of the University of Central Florida (21 supervisory and 63 non-supervisory subjects) were used as the basis for this study through a mail administration of the Hackman and Oldham Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) and their Job Rating Form (JRF). It was hypothesized that: (a) only four significant job dimensions would emerge from factor analysis of the data; (b) that the motivating potential ratings from job incumbents would be significantly different from those provided by supervisors; and (c) that these motivating potential scores would be significantly lower than the norm for the job families into which those positions fell. the data failed to lend support to any of the preceding hypotheses. First, only one significant factor (Skill Variety) was extracted from the non-supervisory data while two factors (Skill Variety and Task Identity) were extracted from the supervisory data. Second, incumbents' ratings were not significantly different from those of their supervisors and third, the motivating potential scores of incumbents were found to be higher than the norm for most of the job families sampled in the study.

Early psychological research on achievement motivation has focused on the effects of fear of failure and the wish to succeed as component parts of need for achievement (nAch). Achievement motivation is defined as a need to achieve for its own sake rather than for the benefits of such achievement (Kimble & Garmezy, 1968, p. 691). It is considered to be a fairly stable personality characteristic, not particularly goal specific (Berkowitz, 1972, p. 115), involving two specific aspects--wish (or hope) to succeed and fear of failure. The first is seen as an approach motive which focuses on anticipation of reward. The second, fear of failure, is seen as an avoidance motive involving anticipation of punishment (McClelland, Clark, Roby, & Atkinson, 1958).

Ambivalence is the experience of both positive and negative evaluations regarding an object such as a person or an event. Although interest in leadership ambivalence has been growing among researchers, there is still little understanding of what distinguishes it from poor leadership. The goal of this dissertation was to contribute to the leadership ambivalence literature by examining ambivalence in the leader-member exchange (LMX) relationship through the lens of occupational stress. Specifically, I used the job demands-resources model as a theoretical foundation and presented leadership ambivalence as a unique job demand that is associated with emotional exhaustion as a symptom of strain after controlling for LMX quality. I also examined the mediating role of rumination and the moderating role of various personal resources. While leadership ambivalence was not a significant direct predictor of emotional exhaustion, the results supported rumination as a mediator of a significant indirect relationship between the two variables. Optimism, tolerance for ambiguity, and neuroticism were not significant moderators of the effect of leadership ambivalence. However, internal locus of control moderated the relationship between leadership ambivalence and rumination such that the relationship was stronger for those with low internality. In further supplementary analysis, the results were validated using an alternative measure of leadership ambivalence.

Recent economic trends and wage stagnation are putting employees in challenging financial situations that may impact their contributions at work. This study draws on scarcity theory (Mullainathan & Shafir, 2013) to investigate how perceived financial scarcity and the experience of a scarcity mindset might impact early career professionals (i.e., graduate students) over a short period of time. A scarcity mindset is characterized by changes in people's thinking, such as increased attentional focus and neglect (i.e., tunneling), increased consideration of sacrifices (i.e., trade-off thinking), and increased cognitive load (i.e., the bandwidth tax; de Bruijn et al., 2021). These changes in cognition are associated with certain behaviors (i.e., borrowing and self-undermining) that create a self-perpetuating cycle of scarcity known as the scarcity trap. To test the model proposed by scarcity theory, the present study used a daily diary design and Multilevel Structural Equation modeling (MSEM). Doctoral students (N=93) reported perceived financial scarcity and changes in cognition and behavior via daily surveys. Across 19 days, participants reported 351 financial events, 211 of which were scarcity-inducing (i.e., shocks). The two most common shocks were related to food and housing, suggesting that the financial cost of meeting basic needs was enough to constitute a shock. When graduate students experienced a shock and an associated increase in their perceived early financial scarcity, they were more likely to make mistakes due to their cognitive resources being consumed by scarcity. Tunneling and trade-off thinking mediated the relation between perceived financial scarcity and financial borrowing. The bandwidth tax mediated the relation between perceived financial scarcity and self-undermining behavior. The existence of the scarcity trap was also partially supported by the reciprocal relationship between financial borrowing and future financial scarcity. These findings suggest that graduate students experiencing financial scarcity were more likely to borrow money and undermine themselves in their work (e.g. making mistakes). These behavioral changes may be attributed to the experience of a scarcity mindset through trade-off thinking, tunneling, and the bandwidth tax. In sum, this study offers support for scarcity theory as an explanatory mechanism for short-term changes in employee thinking and behavior that may perpetuate financial scarcity and its negative effects in the long run. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

This study is a novel application of I/O Psychology principles to the U.S. swine industry. The Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) recently identified caretaker motivation related to compliance with biosecurity behaviors as a priority needing to be better understood. This exploratory study seeks to identify if there is indeed a worker motivation issue within the industry that is impacting compliance with biosecurity, and if so, establish both a baseline of motivation and a better understanding of the primary influencing factors. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Job Demands/Resources Model of Burnout as a framework, an online survey was developed using items, adapted or in original form, from previous research and established measures. A total of 139 caretakers from five pork production companies participated in the survey and form the study's sample population. Results suggest the swine industry's problem with biosecurity compliance is not a motivationally driven issue, but findings were unable to provide evidence supporting a conclusive determination. Results for attitude (TPB) and job resources (JD-R) suggest further investigation into the rewards, supervisor support, and performance feedback categories of job resources could be promising avenues for continuing to explore what drives biosecurity non-compliance. Valuable insight was obtained about the swine industry and the caretaker role, and results are promising for improving quality of data collected as the research continues applying I/O theories and models to the swine industry for the purpose of investigating worker resources and attitudes. Continuing this research will help one of the largest industries in the United States to better understand the interactions and motivations behind worker attitudes and perceptions towards biosecurity adherence and to enhance positive outcomes for employees, farms, and consumers.

Gratitude is an emotion with a number of positive benefits for both individuals and organizations; however, very little research has addressed the role of leaders in influencing the gratitude of those they lead. Organizational leaders can increase the gratitude levels of the leaders who report to them, who then can influence the gratitude of their own subordinates. This study addresses how the emotion of gratitude can trickle-down through two levels of an organizational hierarchy. There are two potential theories to support such trickle-down effects of gratitude: a behavioral explanation in social learning theory and an affective explanation in gratitude as an emotional contagion. Social learning theory can explain how gratitude trickles via the influence role models (i.e., leaders) have on the behavior of those below them. In addition, gratitude as an emotional contagion can unconsciously increase feelings of gratitude after experiencing gratitude expressions and these feelings of gratitude should increase the spread of gratitude to others. An experimental study design consisting of students acting as supervisors and subordinates evaluating email manipulations was used to test the hypotheses. The results from this study support the idea that gratitude can spread from upper-level leaders to lower levels in an organizational hierarchy. In addition, results suggest that this relationship is positively mediated by role modeling effects supporting the behavioral explanation of trickle-down effects. However, results did not support emotional contagion theory as a mechanism that explains trickle-down effects. Such findings offer important implications as leaders can play a significant role in spreading the positive effects of gratitude throughout their organization.

This study investigated the contributions that cognitive ability, social connectedness, and social exclusion make to employee workplace deviance. Positive correlations were predicted between social exclusion and workplace deviance. Participants with low cognitive ability were expected to respond to social exclusion with higher rates of deviance than persons with higher cognitive functioning. In addition, participants scoring high in social connectedness were expected to engage in less deviant behavior than those who generally feel disconnected from their environment. The measurements employed included the following: the Wonderlic Personnel Test, the Social Connectedness Scale, and the Bennett and Robinson (2000) Workplace Deviance Scale. Undergraduate participants were administered a series of vignettes and measures. Social condition was manipulated according to two levels (inclusion and exclusion). The results demonstrated no significant correlation between intelligence and CWB or social connectedness and CWB. Stronger correlations were observed between the social exclusion and workplace deviance. In addition, a significant interaction was detected in which persons with low cognitive ability who felt social disconnected were more likely to engage in organizational deviance under conditions of social exclusion than their socially connected counterparts with higher cognitive functioning.

I investigated insecurity threat and its implications for employee leadership preferences. Preferences for three types of leadership style were examined: charismatic, relationship-oriented, and task-oriented leadership. It was anticipated that individuals’ salient work values would predict leadership preference more strongly after insecurity threat than under control conditions. Two different types of threats were investigated in comparison to a neutral control condition. Results showed that there were no statistically significant differences in leader ratings between threat conditions. My results suggest that threat does not significantly influence preference for charismatic or task-oriented leaders. Work values did not significantly predict a preference for a leadership type.

In response to the millennial job-hopping fad and increasingly low retention rates organizations are facing, it is more important than ever that the best-fit candidate is chosen for the position and the organization. There are two common ways fit is typically defined: person-organization (P-O) fit is the congruence between an employee and the characteristics of a company; person-job (P-J) fit is the match between an employee’s knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and the requirements of the job in the organization (Edwards, 1991; Kristof, 1996). A large pharmaceutical company developed a quality of new hire criterion measure as a function of both P-O fit and P-J fit; that measure is examined in the current study. Results were limited because there were only six quality of hire ratings for managers included in the data set. Furthermore, no significant differences were found in quality of hire ratings for individual contributors based on their division (i.e., human health, support function, scientist, manufacturing, or animal health). Because of limitations (e.g., small sample size) many ideas for future research are discussed.

This investigation was to determine if an applicant’s sex and the job’s sex orientation stereotypes affected the evaluation of applicant information and subsequent selection decision outcomes. Interviewers (N=48) were asked to rate the employment suitability of 49 hypothetical applicants. The results indicated that an interaction of the applicant’s sex and job’s sex orientation had marginal affect on the importance weightings in two of the four applicant attribute factors, motivation/ability and personality/appearance. Applicants with equivalent qualifications did not receive comparable employment suitability ratings, Unfair job discrimination was demonstrated by these data. It was concluded that the applicant’s sex and the job’s sex orientation stereotypes affected the evaluation of applicant attribute information and subsequent selection suitability ratings. Future research advocating a process orientation is suggested.