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In the business context, there is a broad spectrum of practices that potentially harm others, yet might benefit the organization. We examined the influence of individual and situational differences in predicting (un)ethical behavior in these moral gray zones using an in-basket exercise that included covert moral issues in which managers could give unethical instructions to their followers. Results show that individual differences in moral disengagement directly predicted unethical behavior and functioned as a mediator of the relationship between authenticity and unethical behavior. Furthermore, effects differed in weak compared to strong situations. Study 2, replicated the results from Study 1, developed a direct test of the situational strength hypothesis, and showed that high versus low situation strength moderated the relation of moral disengagement to unethical behavior.

In a longitudinal study, the authors examined the role of students' rate of progress, or velocity, in goal-striving over one semester of a college-level Introductory Psychology course. At both mid-course and near end-of-course time periods, results demonstrated that velocity uniquely contributed to the prediction of students' performance satisfaction, mental focus, and goal revision, above and beyond the influence of performance-goal discrepancies and ability. Specifically, velocity demonstrated main effects on performance satisfaction and mental focus. Velocity significantly interacted with goal importance in the prediction of goal revision. The authors call for increased attention to the role of velocity in self-regulation. Dans une etude longitudinale, les auteurs examinent le role du taux de progres des etudiants ou leur rapiditea atteindre des buts sur un semestre pour un cours d'introduction a la psychologie en faculte. Deux mesures ont ete faites: l'une a la moitie du semestre et l'autre a la fin de ce meme semestre. Les resultats montrent que uniquement la rapidite contribue a predire la satisfaction de la performance des etudiants, la concentration, et la revision de l'objectif quels que soient les ecarts entre le but de la performance et les capacites. Plus specifiquement, la rapidite a des effets importants sur la satisfaction de la performance et la concentration. La rapidite interagit significativement avec l'importance des buts dans le cas ou l'on envisage leur revision. Les auteurs soulignent le role de la rapidite sur l'auto-regulation.

We expand the conceptualization of positive leadership and hypothesize that leaders' ability to influence followers across varied complex situations will be enhanced through the development of a rich and multifaceted self-construct. Utilizing self-complexity theory and other aspects of research on self-representation, we show how the structure and structural dynamics of leaders' self-constructs are linked to their varied role demands by calling forth cognitions, affects, goals and values, expectancies, and self-regulatory plans that enhance performance. Through this process, a leader is able to bring the “right stuff” (the appropriate ensemble of attributes) to bear on and succeed in the multiple challenges of leadership. We suggest future research to develop dimensional typologies related to leadership-relevant aspects of the self and also to link individual positive self-complexity to more aggregate positive organizational processes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Un mode`le de la relation entre la culture et le leadership est pre´sente´ dans cet article; ce mode`le est centre´ sur le traitement de l’information. Nous estimons qu’un re´seau connectionniste s’impose pour une bonne compre´hension de la faµon dont la culture et le leadership influencent les re´actions et la comprotement du suiveur, ce qui nous diffe´rencie des travaux ante´rieurs dans ce domaine. On examine brie`vement les structure connectionnistes en remarquant qu’il y a recouvrement entre la conceptualisation des sche´mas inclus dans ces structures et les re´flexions actuelles sur les sche´mas concernant la culture et le leadership. Ce mode`le est suffisamment souple pour expliquer les processus cognitivement efficients qui e´mergent consciemment ou subconsciemment. En outre, il peut rendre compte de la sensibilite´ a` l’information (provenant de la situation) des sche´mas du leadership et des syste`mes culturels. On traite enfin du caracte`re critique de la notion de concept de soi dans la compre´hension des processus a` travers lesquels culture et leadership interagissent pour influencer les re´action et la conduite des suiveurs.

Cet article rapproche des reflexions recentes tirees des sciences de la cognition, du controle de l'action et de la theorie du controle pour montrer que des mecanismes connectionnistes relies a l'activation et a l'inhibition participent a la selection de l'information indispensable a l'orientation des comportements et a la continuite de la pensee. Nous rapprochons la notion de controle de processus dans l'architecture cognitive humaine de la volition et des differences individuelles dans les capacites d'attention selective. Nous montrons egalement qu'un tel systeme est reliea la motivation, aux theories de l'action, a l'apprentissage, a l'affectivite et a diverses donnees relevant des applications. Cette conceptualisation de la theorie du controle permet de reduire le hiatus entre la cognition et l'action grâce a des boucles de controle hierarchisees. Nous notons cependant que le controle hierarchique de sommet a la base doit etre associea un controle reversible et divergent pour que les systemes puissent survivre ou s'adapter a des environnements changeants. This paper integrates recent thinking from cognitive science, action control, and control theory to show that connectionist level mechanisms related to activation and inhibition help select the information needed to guide actions and provide continuity in thoughts. We integrate the notion of process control in the human cognitive architecture with issues of volition and individual differences in selective attention capacities. We also show how such a system relates to motivation, action theories, learning, affect, and several applied issues. This conceptualisation of control theory helps bridge the gap between cognition and action through hierarchically organised control loops. However, we note that top-down hierarchical control must be coupled with discrepancy-based bottom-up control for systems to survive or adjust to changing environments.

In the application of information processing (IP) models in organizational settings, potential boundary or moderator variables are sometimes overlooked. We investigated whether the impact of important IP variables in the leadership perception literature was affected by a potentially important boundary variable: cognitive demands extraneous to impression formation. In contrast to past research, both quantity and quality (prototypicality) of behavior affected leadership perceptions in both low and high information load conditions. This result implies that prototype-related processing may be automatic enough to influence perceptions of leadership in actual organizational settings where cognitive demand is often high. Further, quantity of verbal behavior had a significant impact on causal attributions for level of group task performance and on perceptions of control of the groups‘activities, suggesting that this variable may have important implications for inferences about a person's influence on work group processes and outcomes. The significance of these findings for the issues of leader influence and for the measurement of leader behavior is discussed.

In this paper, a control theory model of human motivation is described. The basic units of this model (goals, sensor, comparator, decision mechanism, and effector mechanism) are explained, system states and boundary conditions are specified, and propositions based on the model are developed. The consequences of controlling different parameters are discussed and extensions of the model to interpersonal tasks are suggested. The practical advantages of this model for understanding the operation of management systems are discussed and areas needing further research are identified.

The present study was designed to look at the effects of two important factors on escalation behavior: explicit goals and specific feedback concerning negative decision consequences. Subjects were assigned to one of six conditions in a 2(explicit goal, general goal) × 3(feedback: small, moderate, or large -failure) factorial design. Results demonstrated that as failure feedback increased from small to moderate levels, subjects with explicit goals escalated their commitment, but they de-escalated when feedback indicated a large goal/feedback discrepancy. In contrast, feedback had no effect on allocation behavior for general goal subjects. The study also content analyzed subjects' self-descriptions in an attempt to explore the processes used to reach an allocation decision. The importance of goals and feedback as well as the need for alternative theoretical frameworks, such as control theory, to explain escalation behavior is discussed.