Collective efficacy, group helping behaviors, and group cohesion are group outcomes that have demonstrated pervasive effects on group performance. These group outcomes are important because of the strong relationships that have been established among these variables. Transformational leadership has shown to greatly foster these outcomes. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the relationship between transformational leadership styles and organizational group outcomes in the workplace.

Careless responders have a large impact on a study by causing issues such as Type II errors (failing to reject a false null hypothesis), which then waste researchers’ time and money. Research on careless responding has focused primarily on detecting and removing careless responders rather than on reducing careless responding before data collection begins. The purpose of the present study was to test the use of honor codes with or without the presentation of a picture of watchful eyes to increase self-awareness thereby reducing careless responding. Participants (N = 305) were randomly assigned to one of five honor code conditions (control condition, read-only condition, type condition, read-and-eyes condition, or type-and-eyes condition) and then completed a number of personality measures. Participant’s responses were screened for careless responding. I found that when participant’s only read an honor code without a picture of watchful eyes on the screen, they were significantly more likely to engage in careless responding than were people in the control condition. There was no significant difference in careless responding in the control condition compared to the other three conditions (type condition, read-and-eyes condition, or type-and-eyes condition). This finding indicates that participants being presented only with an honor code, and no other cues of moral behavior, might lead to psychological reactance (i.e., participants perceiving their freedom or control was threatened). This psychological reactance was likely due to participants feeling coerced to respond honestly by the honor code rather than participants responding honestly on their own accord. Additionally, there were no differences on participant’s responses across conditions on a number of personality measures that may be sensitive to increased self-awareness. A number of exploratory analyses were also conducted to further examine psychological reactance. The present study provides answers and possible directions to a number of useful questions that could improve data quality and reduce potential negative effects of honor codes under certain circumstances.

The present study investigated whether there is a relationship between workload and cognitive overload with self-efficacy, perfectionism, and psychological resilience as possible moderators. Cognitive Load Theory states that individuals have a finite amount of working memory. When the working memory load has reached its maximum, individuals experience cognitive overload. Employees with a higher workload receive higher amounts of information, increasing their cognitive load, thus being more likely to reach cognitive overload. However, self-efficacious individuals, perfectionists, and resilient individuals are more motivated to reach their goals and will persevere despite obstacles. Therefore, I proposed that perceived workload and perceived cognitive overload would be correlated and that self-efficacy, perfectionism, and resilience would moderate that relationship. Using a web-based questionnaire, 278 adults working at least 25 hours per week were given a series of self-report measures about their perceived workload, cognitive overload, self-efficacy, perfectionism, and resilience. Workload was found to be positively correlated with cognitive overload, but self-efficacy, perfectionism, and resilience did not moderate the relationship between workload and cognitive overload. Subsequent analyses provide limited support that level of education moderates the workload-cognitive overload relationship. As personal characteristics do not moderate the relationship between workload and cognitive overload, management in organizations will want to explore different ways to affect the perceived workload of their employees.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an expanding trend as more organizations have adopted various CSR policies. Due to this, CSR has been a growing topic in Business and Psychology research, especially on the micro-level of CSR’s effects on individual employee outcomes. In this study, we proposed a new sub-dimension of Person-Organization (P-O) fit, such that there’s a Person-CSR (P-CSR) fit: the perceived congruence between an individuals’ values with an organization’s CSR initiatives. We predicted that P-CSR fit would explain additional variance over and beyond P-O fit for organizational outcomes: organizational commitment, organizational identity, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Further, we predicted the relationship between P-CSR fit and these organizational outcomes would be moderated by the individual’s social responsibility values. Using a sample of 230 participants, who worked for their current organization for an average of 2.92 years and an average of 35.10 hours per week, results of this study consistently found P-CSR fit to capture additional variance over and beyond P-O fit. However, this study did not find the predicted moderating relationships. This study provides important implications for organizations that do not have CSR established, organizations that have CSR but do not make it known, and organizations that have CSR that are not proactive nor reflective of their industry.

An increasing reliance on expatriate employees makes it critical that multinational organizations make a concerted effort to facilitate the successful transition of employees from foreign cultures. The parallels between the experience of expatriate employees and international students suggests that the results of research investigating issues of cross‑cultural adaptability that are conducted in academic settings should generalize to the workplace. The current study investigated the influence of the Sino‑American 1+2+1 Dual Degree Program on the cross‑cultural adaptability, acculturation, and withdrawal intentions of international students. It was hypothesized that participants in the 1+2+1 program would demonstrate higher levels of psychological adaptability and socio‑cultural adaptability, while demonstrating lower levels of withdrawal intentions. In addition, it was hypothesized that 1+2+1 participants would be more likely to adopt an acculturation orientation style than 1+2+1 non‑participants. To test the hypotheses, survey responses were obtained from 50 Chinese international students who were currently enrolled at California State University, San Bernardino, Northern Arizona University, and Coastal Carolina University. Results provided partial support for the 1+2+1 program improving the socio‑cultural adaptability of international students, while providing no support for the other three hypotheses. An interpretation of the results is provided that cites past studies which present potential explanations for the findings. Finally, an overview of the limitations of the current study, as well as the theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Our workforce continues to gray due to advances in medical science and new technology, which allows workers to remain in the workforce longer. Furthermore, we need our current workforce to remain motivated and work until an older age due to decreased birth rates and the smaller size of the post baby boomer cohorts. An in-depth examination of the motivation of our aging workforce is necessary to determine how we can increase motivation and keep older workers (those 55 and older) in the workforce longer, while remaining productive. In this study, three divisions of health (i.e., Major Illnesses, Functional Impairments, and Psychosomatic Illnesses) were related to three work goals (i.e., To-Work, At-Work, and To-Retire), combining aspects of the works of Feldman (1994), Shultz and Wang (2007), and Kanfer, Beier, and Ackerman (2012), using archival data extracted through the National Heath and Retirement Study (HRS). A two-step hierarchical regression was conducted with age, gender, wealth, education level, marital status, financial control, and ethnicity as covariates. Most hypotheses were partially supported, with Functional Impairments exhibiting a small effect on To-Work, At-Work, and To-Retire goals. Major Illnesses exhibited some unexpected relationships, however, as they were not positively related to To-Work and To-Retire goals. All health factors exhibited a negative relationship with a small effect on At-Work goals.

In today’s information age, technological advances in virtually every industry allow organizations, both big and small, to create and store more data than ever before. Though data are highly abundant, they are still often underutilized resources with regard to improving organizational performance. The popularity and intrigue around big data specifically has opened up new opportunities to study how organizations embrace evidence and use it to improve their business. Generally, the focus of big data has mainly been on specific technologies, techniques, or its use in everyday life; however, what has been critically missing from the conversation is the consideration of culture and climate to support effective data use in organizations. Currently, many organizations want to develop a data-embracing climate or create changes to make their existing climates more data-informed. The purpose of this project was to develop a scale to assess the current state of data usage in organizations, which can be used to help organizations measure how well they manage, share, and use data to make informed decisions. I defined the phenomena of a data-embracing climate based on reviewing a broad range of business, computer science, and industrial-organizational psychology literature. Using this definition, I developed a scale to measure this newly defined construct by first conducting an exploratory factor analysis, then an item retranslation task, and finally a confirmatory factor analysis. This research provides support for the reliability and validity of the Albrecht Data-Embracing Climate Scale (ADEC); however, the future of this new area of research could benefit by replicating the results of this study and gaining support for the new construct. Implications for science and practice are discussed. I sought to make a valuable contribution to the field of I-O psychology and to make a useful instrument for researchers and practitioners in multiple and diverse fields. I hope others will benefit from this scale to measure how organizations use evidence from data to make informed decisions and gain a competitive advantage beyond intuition alone. Do not cite without express permission from the author.

Conflict resolution research has resided at both the individual and group level for the many years. However, recent findings have provided evidence for the existence of conflict resolution strategies at the cultural level. As these recent findings indicate, the existence of such resolution styles at that macro level can have great implications on organizational outcomes. Therefore, the first goal of this study was to examine if these conflict resolution cultures would predict outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and psychological withdrawal behavior. Similarly, research on P-O fit has also provided some very interesting insights into employee behavior and attitudes. Given the idiosyncratic nature of conflict resolution and the recent findings mentioned in the previous paragraph, the second goal of this study was to examine if perceptions of congruence between an individual’s resolution style and the organization’s resolution style would affect job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and psychological withdrawal behavior. Finally, it was determined that perceptions of resolution (i.e. was the conflict constructively resolved) would be an appropriate and rather informative mediating variable for the relationships proposed above. Data was collected using a web-based survey software, which garnered 212 participants for the analysis. Evidence was found to support a majority of the proposed hypotheses. All three-conflict resolution cultures (collaborative, dominant, and avoidant) predicted the outcome variables in the directions consistent with both logic and the literature. Similarly, perceptions of resolution did mediate six of the nine proposed relationships between the resolution cultures and the outcome variables. Two of these mediation analyses were not conducted due to an insignificant initial bivariate correlation. Support was also found for all three proposed direct effects between perceptions of congruence and the proposed outcome variables. Finally, perceptions of resolution mediated the relationship between perceptions of congruence and all three-outcome variables. Again, the directions of these findings were consistent with both logic and the literature. Both the theoretical and practical implications, as well as the limitations with this study will be discussed.

Online education is becoming more prominent, but it has been found that employers are biased against hiring job applicants with online education. The influence of mode of education and degree level on employer perceptions of applicants’ hireability was investigated. It was hypothesized that employer perceptions would decrease as the education of an applicant moved to a category consisting of more online education. It was hypothesized that employers would be less likely to move forward with applicants in the hiring process (viability) as applicants’ education moved to a category consisting of more online education. It was hypothesized that degree level would moderate the relationship of mode of education on employer perceptions of applicants’ hireability and viability. Although it was expected that perceptions of hireability would increase as the applicants’ degree level increased and that perceptions would decrease as applicants’ education moved to a category consisting of more online education, as mode of education moved from hybrid to online, employer perceptions of applicants’ hireability were expected to decrease as applicants’ college degree level advanced. Survey results were collected using Qualtrics Resume Screener service. Results showed employer biases against an applicant’s hireability and viability exist as an applicants’ education moved to a category consisting of more online education, but degree level did not change this relationship. Theories were applied to results to provide possible explanations for the biases. The limitations of the current study as well as the theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Every individual associates him/herself with a specific and sometimes a unique identity. In a workplace setting individuals may choose to either openly display and/or speak about their identity or they may choose to conceal it. Research shows that manifestation and/or suppression of an identity in the workplace can affect individual outcomes such as perceptions of discrimination, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. The present study investigated whether an identity characterized as visible and/or invisible would affect an individual’s decision to either manifest and/or suppress his/her identity. The study further examined the effects of identity management techniques used by individuals on their perceptions of discrimination in the workplace, job satisfaction, and intentions to leave the organization. The sample included 369 individuals who were at the time of the survey at least half time employed. Independent-samples t-tests were used to test the relationship between identity characteristics and identity management. Path analyses was used to analyze the hypothesized relationship between identity management, perceptions of discrimination, job Satisfaction, and turnover intentions. The study found that individuals with an invisible identity are more likely to suppress their identities. It was also found that identity suppression had a direct positive relationship with perceptions of discrimination. Perceived discrimination was found to have a negative correlation with job satisfaction and a positive relationship with turnover intentions. Additionally, the study found that Job satisfaction is negatively correlated with Turnover Intentions. The importance of proper diversity management strategies and the role of an inclusive work environment on employees’ decision to either manifest and/or suppress their identities are discussed.