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Leaders are expected to enhance the work meaningfulness of followers, but little insight exists on the role of leaders' own experience of meaningfulness in that process. We propose a leader–follower transfer model of work meaningfulness through visionary leadership, grounded in self-concept-based theory, in which leader–follower dyadic tenure shapes the effects of visionary leadership on followers. Moreover, we suggest that work meaningfulness can enhance followers' goal achievement and reduce turnover intentions. We tested and confirmed our moderated-mediation model in two independent, multisource, multilevel field data sets of 79 mid-level leaders and 871 employees in Study 1 and 68 CEOs and 596 mid-level leaders in Study 2. We also empirically ruled out a series of alternative transfer mechanisms, including transformational and transactional leadership, leader–member exchange, and all subdimensions of transformational leadership. This research contributes to the scholarly discussions on work meaningfulness and visionary leadership and offers novel insights for practitioners to enhance work meaningfulness in their organizations.

Multiple team membership (MTM) is a complex phenomenon that poses significant challenges for organizational research and practice. In this article, we delve into the multilevel nature of MTM, which has not received adequate research attention to date. We develop a resource-based framework that advances our understanding of the antecedents and productivity consequences of firm MTM, and the synergistic effects of individual MTM and firm MTM on an individual's emotional exhaustion. Using a sample of 19,803 employees from 145 German organizations, our analyses reveal that MTM is most prevalent in knowledge-intensive and understaffed firms, and that firm MTM has an inverted U-shaped (rather than a positive linear) relationship with subsequent firm productivity. In addition, we find that individual MTM and firm MTM interactively shape individual stress perceptions, such that positive linkages between individual MTM and emotional exhaustion are significant only in firms with higher (but not lower) firm MTM. Together, these findings suggest that MTM has the potential to lead to firm-level productivity gains but, at the same time, may take a toll on individual employees' well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Do high job demands help employees to stay challenged at work, or do they challenge their well-being? Despite burnout being an ever-pressing matter in contemporary workspaces, the understanding of the link between job demands and burnout remains limited, especially considering the important multilayered role of context in organizations. Our study develops an integrated perspective on the antecedents of burnout, rather than viewing various elements in isolation. Specifically, we uncover a three-way interaction among job demands, collective trust, and competitive pressure across the three levels of study via a multilevel analysis of 5485 employees, nested into 2872 units in 89 German organizations. The three-way interaction of individual-level job demands with unit-level collective trust depends on the magnitude of competitive pressure at the organizational level. In a condition of low organizational-level competitive pressure, unit-level trust can mitigate the positive effect of individual job demands on burnout. Our findings indicate that job demands can be a double-edged sword, bringing with them both benefits and burdens. From a practical perspective, we provide guidance for organizations on how to maintain high job demands by emphasizing collective trust and open communication about organizational-level competitive pressure to mitigate burnout at work.

Prior research suggests that the organizational context supports the emergence of employee ambidexterity; however, the interplay between formal and informal context has been largely unexplored. We analyze this interplay with a multilevel, multisource data set of 2446 individual employees nested in 77 organizations. We find that a promotion climate—unlike a prevention climate—contributes to employee ambidexterity. In addition, formalization positively moderates the effects of both promotion and prevention climate on employee ambidexterity, while centralization weakens the positive effect of promotion climate. Our results advance a contingency perspective that brings together formal and informal contextual drivers of employee ambidexterity and shows that even though an informal climate signals the preferred manner of goal pursuit, a formal structure affects the impact of such signals by delineating opportunity corridors of admissible behaviors.

Dieser Beitrag der Zeitschrift „Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO)“ stellt eine Studie zum ambidextren Fuhrungsklima in der neuen Arbeitswelt vor. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen haben gezeigt, dass eine ambidextre, also beidhandige, Fuhrung entscheidend fur die Team- und individuelle Leistung in der neuen Arbeitswelt ist. Wenig ist jedoch daruber bekannt, ob und unter welchen Bedingungen eine ambidextre Fuhrung den Erfolg ganzer Unternehmen beeinflusst. Basierend auf Studien zur Ambidextrie von Unternehmen, fuhren wir das Konstrukt eines ambidextren Fuhrungsklimas ein und untersuchen, welchen Einfluss der Wettbewerbsdruck auf die Beziehung zwischen Fuhrungsklima und Unternehmensleistung hat. Hypothesen werden anhand einer Stichprobe von uber 16.000 Personen aus 94 Unternehmen getestet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass zwar ein positiver Zusammenhang zwischen einem ambidextren Fuhrungsklima und der Unternehmensleistung besteht, der Wettbewerbsdruck jedoch eine starke moderierende Wirkung auf diese Beziehung hat. Die Wirkung einer ambidextren Fuhrung auf die Unternehmensleistung wird bei einem Kontext mit geringem Wettbewerbsdruck aufgehoben, d. h. sie tritt nur unter der Bedingung eines mittleren bis starken Wettbewerbsdrucks auf. Unsere empirischen Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Unternehmen, die sich in einer dynamisch und rasant verandernden Arbeitswelt mit zunehmendem Wettbewerbsdruck konfrontiert sehen, ihre Unternehmensleistung durch die Entwicklung eines ambidextren Fuhrungsklimas steigern konnen.

Research suggests that firms with family CEOs differ from other types of businesses, yet surprisingly little is known about how employees in these firms feel and behave compared to those working in other firms. We draw from family science and management research to suggest that family CEOs, because of their emotion-evoking double role as family members and business leaders, are, on average, more likely to infuse employees with positive emotions, such as enthusiasm and excitement, than hired professional CEOs. We suggest that these emotions spread through firms by way of emotional contagion during interactions with employees, thereby setting the organizational affective tone. In turn, we hypothesize that in firms with family CEOs the voluntary turnover rate is lower. In considering structural features as boundary conditions, we propose that family CEOs have stronger effects in smaller and centralized firms, and weaker effects in formalized firms. Multilevel data from 41,200 employees and 2,246 direct reports of CEOs from 497 firms with and without family CEOs provide support for our model. This research suggests that firms managed by family CEOs, despite often being criticized as nepotistic relics of the past, tend to offer pleasant work environments.

Drawing from team-level job demands-resources theory, we hypothesize that team workload demands moderate the positive link between team boundary work (i.e., boundary spanning and boundary buffering) and team effectiveness (i.e., team innovation and team performance), such that boundary work is more beneficial for team effectiveness when teams face higher team workload demands. Furthermore, we predict that this interaction occurs through increased team vigor, where team vigor is defined as an affective emergent state characterized by positive valences and high activation levels experienced by team members. We largely find support for our model across two field studies: a cross-sectional survey using three independent data sources (89 automotive research and development teams, including 724 team members, 89 team leaders and 18 managers) and a time-lagged survey using two independent data sources (139 teams working in a Chinese utility company, including 640 team members and 139 team leaders). Our article contributes to team research by broadening our understanding of when and how team boundary work is associated with greater team effectiveness. published

To strategically manage the deployment of collective human resources toward performance, managers must recognize, interpret, and align the volatile resources of productive organizational energy. Despite relevant prior work, research and practice still lack a comprehensive approach toward analyzing and managing energy patterns over time. We develop a framework for temporal configurations and prototypical trajectories of productive organizational energy. We then introduce the ‘Energy Pattern Explorer’ as a strategy tool to: (1) identify and predict actual patterns of productive organizational energy in organizations, and (2) suggest energy leadership activities specific to current and anticipated changes and patterns of productive organizational energy. We provide examples of how managers can use this tool and conclude with suggestions for research and practice.

In this study, we seek to understand the consequences of demographic faultlines at the organizational level. Drawing from the faultline and cross-categorization literature, we suggest that organizational demographic faultlines (based on age and gender) have the potential to either reduce or enhance employees’ collective organizational identification and, thereby, indirectly influence firm performance and innovation. Whether organizational demographic faultlines have detrimental or beneficial effects depends on the functional heterogeneity within faultline-based demographic subgroups, where heterogeneity is defined as the extent to which subgroup members belong to different functional departments. We theorize that this functional heterogeneity alters the degree of social integration between demographic subgroups. Results from a multisource field study of demographic faultlines among 5,495 employees in 82 small and medium-sized firms (< 250 employees) support our model. We demonstrate that organizational demographic faultlines have important consequences, and we show that functional heterogeneity changes whether these consequences are negative or positive.

Faced with competitive labor markets, firms increasingly use employer branding to build a qualified workforce and engage their employees. However, our understanding of the impact of employer branding orientation on firm performance and the theoretical firm‐level mechanisms underlying this potential impact is very limited. To address this gap, we integrate brand marketing theory with human resource management (HRM) research to develop a model explicating how employer branding orientation is linked to firm performance through a dual route by enhancing both recruitment efficiency (i.e., external route: applicants) and positive affective climate (i.e., internal route: incumbent employees). The results of a multisource study (i.e., top management, human resource managers, employees) with 93 firms show employer branding orientation is positively related to firm performance through positive affective climate but not recruitment efficiency. Using a brand equity approach to HRM, our results advance the literature by demonstrating the generalizability of employer branding effects independent of concrete brand attributes and explaining the firm‐level mediating mechanisms linking it to firm performance. published

We explore whether, and how, Top Management Team (TMT) cohesion can affect the collective turnover intentions of employees, through two interrelated interface processes. Based on Social Information Processing theory, we propose that the organization's corrosive climate and non-TMT managers' transformational leadership transmit TMT cohesion-based symbolic and relational information through a moderated-mediation model. The results of our Structural Equations Modelling (SEM) analyses of a multi-source dataset of 96 organizations—including 305 TMT members and 10964 employees split across three surveys—support our hypotheses. Confirmatory Factor Analyses support our measurement model, and the testing of various alternative models indicate that our findings are robust. Overall, our theory and findings highlight a more complex interface perspective on how the TMT affects employees, as key internal stakeholders, and provides a comprehensive model for future work.

This study contributes to the emerging literature on age diversity effects at the organizational level of analysis by comparing the role of chronological‐age diversity versus subjective‐age diversity. We hypothesize a multilevel model in which organizational‐level subjective‐age diversity is negatively related to bonding social capital within organizations, which, in turn, contributes to heightened employee engagement and lowered turnover intentions. The assumed relationships are tested in a multilevel sample of 96 German small and medium‐sized companies with 16,274 employees participating. We gathered data from four different sources to circumvent common source problems and received support for most of the proposed relationships. Given the potentially detrimental effects of high subjective‐age diversity in the workplace, the paper concludes with practical recommendations on how to manage subjective‐age diversity in companies pro‐actively. published

Regulatory focus as a motivational mechanism, plays a significant role in determining whether leaders and followers will focus on promotion goals, aspiring to “keep their head in the clouds” thinki...

This article investigates how and when a firm’s level of customer contact influences the collective organizational energy. For this purpose, we bridge the literature on collective human energy at work with the job impact framework and organizational sensemaking processes and argue that a firm’s level of customer contact is positively linked to the collective organizational energy because a high level of customer contact might make the experience of prosocial impact across the firm more likely. However, as prior research at the individual level has indicated that customers could also deplete employees’ energy, we introduce transformational leadership climate as a novel contingency factor for this linkage at the organizational level. We propose that a medium to high transformational leadership climate is necessary to derive positive meaning from customer contact, whereas firms with a low transformational leadership climate do not get energized by customer contact. We tested the proposed moderated mediation model with multilevel modeling and a multisource data set comprising 9,094 employees and 75 key informants in 75 firms. The results support our hypotheses and offer important theoretical contributions for research on collective human energy in organizations and its interplay with customers.

Research on the effects of HR management on employees’ psychological well‐being has yielded inconclusive results. Moreover, prior works remain unclear on whether human resource practices specifically aimed at enhancing employee well‐being also benefit organizational performance. Building on signaling theory and conservation of resources theory, our study investigates the relationship between health‐related human resource management (HHRM), employees’ collective well‐being (in terms of collective emotional exhaustion and collective engagement) and organizational performance. Results from a multi‐source field study of top management team members, HR representatives, and 15,952 employees in 88 organizations reveal a positive indirect relationship between HHRM and employees’ collective well‐being, which is mediated by employees’ positive stress mindset. In addition, we find this positive indirect association to depend on the level of transformational leadership climate in organizations. Finally, our findings also show a positive indirect relationship between HHRM and company performance, mediated by employees’ positive stress mindset and collective engagement.

This study integrates recent advances in interdependence theory with the literature on commitment-based HR practices. New research on interdependence theory suggests that differences, or asymmetries, in task dependence among organisational members can cause interests to diverge. Prior research has shown that this can negatively affect interpersonal relations, individual outcomes and team processes. However, these insights gained on the dyadic, individual and team levels of analysis have not yet been explored at the organisational level and, until now, no research had yet connected these advances in interdependence theory to the field of HRM research. Hence, the current study investigates (a) whether asymmetries in task dependence do (or do not) matter at the organisational level and affect organisational effectiveness, (b) why this relationship may work by assessing a key mediator, namely, trust climate and (c) if and how these relationships can be altered by commitment-based HR practices. Our moderated-mediation model was tested and fully supported by a multi-source data set of 8,390 employees from 67 organisations.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how and when customers influence organizational climate and organizational health through their feedback. Based on affective events theory, the authors classify both positive and negative customer feedback (PCF and NCF) as affective work events. The authors expect that these events influence the positive affective climate of an organization and ultimately organizational health, and that the relationships are moderated by empowerment climate. Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze survey data obtained from a sample of 178 board members, 80 HR representatives, and 10,953 employees from 80 independent organizations. Findings – The findings support the expected indirect effects. Furthermore, empowerment climate strengthened the impact of PCF on organizational health but does not affect the relationship between NCF and organizational health. Research limitations/implications – The cross-sectional design is a potential limitation of the study. Practical implications – Managers should be aware that customer feedback influences an organization’s emotional climate and organizational health. Based on the results organizations might actively disseminate PCF and establish an empowerment climate. With regard to NCF, managers might consider the potential affective and health-related consequences for employees and organizations. Social implications – Customers are able to contribute to an organization’s positive affective climate and to organizational health if they provide positive feedback to organizations. Originality/value – By providing first insights into the consequences of both PCF and NCF on organizational health, this study opens a new avenue for scientific inquiry of customer influences on employees at the organizational level.

Burnout is an ever-pressing matter in contemporary workspaces. The current research investigates the relation of job demands to burnout and the extent that this relationship is moderated by unit co...

Recent advancements in ambidexterity research suggest that HRM plays a vital role in shaping contextual ambidexterity. Building on social information processing theory, the present study extends this literature by putting the spotlight on two fundamental, yet often implicit assumptions of contextual ambidexterity. First, we examine how HRM practices that are specifically designed to promote ambidextrous cues (i.e., ambidexterity-oriented HRM [A-HRM] practices) are related to contextual ambidexterity. Second, we address the premise that such HRM practices actually affect all employees in an organization. In addition, we introduce transformational leadership (TFL) climate as a critical boundary condition that helps to translate paradoxical signals of A-HRM practices to the employees. We tested these relationships in a multi-source sample of 16,740 employees from 94 organizations and found support for the proposed interaction effect of A-HRM and TFL climate on employees’ ambidextrous behavior and, in turn, organizational performance (i.e., indirect effects). Our study contributes to a better understanding of creating contextual ambidexterity and the important role of leaders in the implementation of A-HRM practices.

As organizations strive for more flexibility in their business procedures, decentralized organizational structures have reemerged as a topic of interest in recent years. Yet, despite its long-stand...

Grounded in an open systems perspective, we build and test new theory about how the kinds of industries in which an organization participates influences organizational affective tone and connects to workforce strain. We propose that the more an organization's activities lie in consumer-centric industries (e.g., service, retail), the more positive and less negative the organization's affective tone. We connect consumer-centric industry participation and affective tone by explaining how personnel policies and organizational structure generate and sustain consistent positive and negative affect throughout an organization. Additionally, we examine the effects of organizational affective tone on workforce strain. The results of a survey-based study of 24,015 human resource managers, top management team members, and employees of 161 firms largely support our predictions. We discuss the implications of considering macro contextual factors for understanding affect in organizations.

This study examines how followers regulate their outward expression of emotions in the context of two types of leadership that are commonly associated with transformational leadership, namely charismatic leadership and individually considerate leadership. Based on new theorizing and a series of three studies involving experiments and field work, we show that the two types of leadership have different effects on followers' emotional expressiveness. Specifically, we find that followers under the influence of leaders' charisma tend to suppress the expression of emotions (we call this the “awestruck effect”), but followers express emotions when leaders consider them individually. Awestruck followers may suffer from expressive inhibition even as charismatic leaders stir their hearts.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine, theoretically and empirically, whether an employee training program can enhance the collective perception of empowerment of work units within an organization. The authors hypothesized that training participation relates to empowerment by enhancing the potency, meaningfulness, impact, and autonomy of the employees. Design/methodology/approach – The authors collected data at two time points, before and after the training intervention. Over the two periods, the sample consisted of an average of 2,383 employees nested in 36 work units of a large multinational company. Findings – The results indicated a positive relationship between training participation and increased levels of collective psychological empowerment, with differential effects on the dimensions of empowerment. Practical implications – This study provides evidence of the positive relationship between training and empowerment, suggesting training effects across levels of analysis. The results indicated dimensions of empowerment that are more and such that are less prone to training. Such knowledge may help to inform organizations in developing training strategies. The authors provide recommendations for a respective training program. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies to investigate the relationship between training participation of individual employees and shared empowerment perceptions within their work units, adding an important antecedent to the research on empowerment. In addition, the authors propose ways of how individual employees can affect shared perceptions among work-unit members. The study offers insights into the development of empowered work units, the vertical transfer of training across levels of analysis and implications for training programs.

In this paper, we suggest that CEO charisma is related to firm performance via its effect on two important mediators. First, charismatic CEOs are expected to raise the transformational leadership climate within an organization. Second, both CEO charisma and transformational leadership climate are proposed to increase a firm's organizational identity strength, which in turn, relates positively to firm performance. We tested these propositions on a sample of 150 German companies (20,639 employees) with a three-path mediation model at the organizational level of analysis, utilizing four independent data sources. To test the assumed relationships, we used structural equation modeling and applied bootstrapping. Our study helps open the black box of organizational leadership and organizational performance by demonstrating top-level leadership's (CEO charisma) cascading effect on the TFL climate throughout the organization and by showing that OIDS mediates both leadership levels' relationships with firm performance. Further, our study is the first to investigate and demonstrate the relationship between OIDS and performance at the organizational level of analysis.

While complaint management has received much attention, customer compliments and their systematic handling have been largely ignored. Based on two empirical studies, this article suggests that customer compliments bear great potential for benefiting firms, and gives recommendations on how managers can enable, stimulate, and amplify positive customer feedback.

Early life stress (ELS) affects stress- reactivity via limbic brain regions implicated such as hippocampus and amygdala. Social support is a major protective factor against ELS effects, while subjects with ELS experience reportedly perceive less of it in their daily life. The workplace, where most adults spend a substantial amount of time in their daily lives, might serve as a major resource for social support. Since previous data demonstrated that social support attenuates stress reactivity, we here used a psychosocial stress task to test the hypothesis that work-related social support modulates the effects of ELS. Results show decreased amygdala reactivity during stress in ELS subjects who report high levels of work- related social support, thereby indicating a signature for reduced stress reactivity. However, this effect was only observable on the neural, but not on the behavioral level, since social support had no buffering effect regarding the subjective experience of stress in daily life as well as regarding feelings of uncontrollability induced by the stress task. Accordingly, our data suggest that subjects with ELS experiences might benefit from interventions targeted at lowering their subjective stress levels by helping them to better perceive the availability of social support in their daily lives.

With this article we contribute to the inclusion of employees with disabilities in the workplace. Based on Stone and Colella's (1996) model of factors affecting the treatment of employees with disabilities in organizations, we concentrate on the investigation of job satisfaction as a focal affective response. Besides examining job satisfaction differences between employees with and without disabilities, we focus on perceived flexibility as an organizational boundary condition, arguing for its influence on the job satisfaction of employees with disabilities. We introduce perceived centralization and formalization, representing different indicators of flexibility, as moderators of the disability–job satisfaction relationship. Regression analysis using data from 110 small and medium-sized companies with 4,141 employees reveals that employees with disabilities are less satisfied than their colleagues without disabilities in highly centralized environments. As predicted, a decentralized organizational context relates to higher job satisfaction levels for all employees, but especially for those having a disability. Contrary to our hypothesis, perceived formalization does not significantly influence the relationship between having a disability and job satisfaction. However, our results clearly indicate the need for companies and especially human resource departments to better adapt to the needs of people with disabilities by creating flexible working environments.

We extend theories on charismatic leadership by investigating the influence of prior company performance on subordinates’ attributions of chief executive officer (CEO) charisma within companies of different sizes and ownership structure. First, we use an experimental design to examine the effects of prior company performance on attributions of CEO charisma. Second, in a field study with 69 companies we replicate the experimental finding and show that this relationship is moderated by the size of the company such that the relationship between prior company performance and attributions of CEO charisma is significant only in large companies. We find no evidence, however, that the ownership structure of a company could strengthen or weaken this relationship.

This study investigates how transformational leadership, through shared leadership, predicts followers’ information technology (IT) innovation adoption at work. We further examine how management in...

Employees increasingly serve on more than one team simultaneously, an arrangement referred to as multiple team membership (MTM). Despite the increasing popularity of MTM arrangements, the predomina...

This paper seeks to advance the diversity literature by investigating organizational performance consequences of age diversity. Drawing from social-identity and social- categorization theory, we theoretically argue that, in age-diverse companies, age-based subgrouping processes occur, favouring a shared perception of a negative age-discrimination climate. This perceived negative age-discrimination climate in turn negatively relates to organizational performance. As the main contribution, top managers' negative age-related stereotypes and diversity-friendly HR policies are introduced as organizational-level moderators that increase and attenuate, respectively, the social categorization processes affecting performance in age-diverse companies. We utilized structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the proposed hypotheses using a multisource dataset comprising 147 companies. The results supported all hypotheses, indicating that low negative top managers' age stereotypes as well as high diversity-friendly HR policies are potential organizational factors that can prevent the negative relation of age diversity with organizational performance transmitted through the negative age-discrimination climate. These results are discussed in light of their contribution to the diversity literature and social-categorization theory as well as their implication for practitioners.

This article explores whether a top management team’s (TMT) behavioural integration relates to the work outcomes of employees. We first discuss likely theoretical mechanisms for such a relationship by integrating the literature on top management team behavioural integration with the literature on organizational climate, productive energy and employee work outcomes. Subsequently, we test our hypotheses in a dataset containing the responses of 191 top management team members and 5048 employees from 63 organizations by using structural equation modelling. The results show that top management team behavioural integration is related positively to an organization’s productive energy, which in turn is related to employees’ increased job satisfaction and decreased turnover intentions. By providing first insights into the consequences of top management team behavioural integration for employees, this article opens a new avenue for scientific inquiry on the organizational impact of top management team behaviour.

Age diversity has been shown to be detrimental for organizational performance, as an increasingly age diverse workforce is prone to create mutual discrimination processes, which ultimately lower organizational performance (Kunze et al., 2011). In this study we integrate the discussion on organizational-level age diversity with findings on subjective-age structures in organizations (Kunze et al., 2015). We propose that subjective age structures (i.e., how old the employees perceive to be) shape the formation of age-based subgroups in organizations more strongly than the chronological age of employees does. Shared perceptions of an age discrimination climate are in turn expected to be positively related to the average level of reported psychological health (measured through burnout perceptions) in organizations, with stronger effects for older compared to younger employees, proposing a moderated-mediation model. Our study hypotheses are tested and supported in a sample of 96 German small and medium-sized companies with more than 16,000 employees.

Transformational leadership (TFL) climate describes the degree to which leaders throughout an organization engage in TFL behaviors. In this study, we investigate performance linkages, mechanisms, and boundary conditions of TFL climate at the organizational level of analysis. In a sample of 158 independent organizations, 18,094 employees provided data on TFL climate, positive affective climate, trust climate, and employees' task performance behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. In addition, human resource managers rated overall employee productivity. Study results yielded a pattern of moderated mediation for overall employee productivity and employees' aggregate task performance behavior, in that an organization's TFL climate was indirectly (through positive affective climate) related with these outcome variables under conditions of high trust climate, but not under conditions of low trust climate. Further, we found an organization's TFL climate to indirectly relate with employees' aggregate organizational citizenship behavior through positive affective climate, largely independent of the level of trust climate. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

© 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/ert.20344 Why do some companies buzz with energy and life, while others suffer from stagnation and complacency? Why do some organizations achieve peaks of energy and activity only to plunge into valleys of stagnant inertia? Why do some organizations seem poisoned through and through by negative politicking and bickering, or lost in a slough of organizational burnout? Most leaders have experienced the ebb and flow of different states of energy in their own organizations. This energy belongs to the intangible but very powerful, so-called soft factors of human potential that lie at the core of all companies. We call this phenomenon organizational energy and define it as the extent to which an organization, division, or team has mobilized its emotional, cognitive, and behavioral potential to pursue its goals. Simply put, it is the force with which a company (or work unit) works. There are different types of energy, and these various types are what make organizations tick. At the heart of our energy concept lies a framework we call the energy matrix, which allows us to describe the energy states of an organization and even measure them. Specifically, our research shows that companies’ energy states can differ in two dimensions: its intensity and its quality. The intensity of organizational energy reflects the degree to which a company has activated its emotional, cognitive, and behavioral potential: namely, the level of emotional tension, watchfulness, interaction, and communication that prevails in a company. We distinguish here between high and low intensity; high intensity indicates a high level of emotional involvement, mental activation, and engagement, whereas low intensity describes a reduced level of these states. A very low intensity reflects a company that is more or less in sleeping mode. The quality of organizational energy describes how a company uses its energy—to what extent the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral forces align constructively with common, central company goals. We distinguish here between positive and negative energy. Positive organizational energy is characterized by a constructive use of the company’s potential. People direct their emotions, mental agility, thoughtfulness, efforts, and activities to fortify their unit or company goals. Negative organizational energy reflects a lack of common orientation toward shared corporate goals. It implies a destructive use of the company’s potential. In the state of negative energy, organizations show emotions such as fear, frustration, and annoyance among employees; people think and act in ways disconnected from the company’s goals or even try to maximize their own personal

We introduce the notion that the energy of individuals can manifest as a higher-level, collective construct. To this end, we conducted four independent studies to investigate the viability and importance of the collective energy construct as assessed by a new survey instrument—the productive energy measure (PEM). Study 1 (n = 2208) included exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to explore the underlying factor structure of PEM. Study 2 (n = 660) cross-validated the same factor structure in an independent sample. In study 3, we administered the PEM to more than 5000 employees from 145 departments located in five countries. Results from measurement invariance, statistical aggregation, convergent, and discriminant-validity assessments offered additional support for the construct validity of PEM. In terms of predictive and incremental validity, the PEM was positively associated with three collective attitudes—units' commitment to goals, the organization, and overall satisfaction. In study 4, we explored the relationship between the productive energy of firms and their overall performance. Using data from 92 firms (n = 5939employees), we found a positive relationship between the PEM (aggregated to the firm level) and the performance of those firms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We sought to establish whether mean level within-team assessments of a leader's transformational behavior and the extent of perceived variability (i.e., consensus) among team members’ ratings around this mean level are separate yet related indicators of leader quality. To this end, using data from 108 work teams in a multinational field setting, we explored the relationship between managers’ transformational leadership behavior and team performance as moderated by the extent of variability among team members’ leadership behavior ratings. Recognizing that the relationship between leader behavior and team performance is indirect, we further examined whether team empowerment served as a mediating mechanism through which transformational leadership is evoked. Study results, based on ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses and bootstrapped estimates, were consistent with the hypothesized conceptual scheme of moderated mediation, in that the joint effects of transformational leadership behavior and consensus about transformational leadership were found to have an indirect effect on team performance through team empowerment. These findings broaden the focus of transformational leadership theory by illustrating that, within a team context, the transformational leadership–performance linkage is more nuanced than previously believed.

This paper deals with the emergence of perceived age discrimination climate on the company level and its performance consequences. In this new approach to the field of diversity research, we investigated (a) the effect of organizational-level age diversity on collective perceptions of age discrimination climate that (b) in turn should influence the collective affective commitment of employees, which is (c) an important trigger for overall company performance. In a large-scale study that included 128 companies, a total of 8,651 employees provided data on their perceptions of age discrimination and affective commitment on the company level. Information on firm-level performance was collected from key informants. We tested the proposed model using structural equation modeling (SEM) procedures and, overall, found support for all hypothesized relationships. The findings demonstrated that age diversity seems to be related to the emergence of an age discrimination climate in companies, which negatively impacts overall firm performance through the mediation of affective commitment. These results make valuable contributions to the diversity and discrimination literature by establishing perceived age discrimination on the company level as a decisive mediator in the age diversity/performance link. The results also suggest important practical implications for the effective management of an increasingly age diverse workforce.

This article empirically investigates the role of organizational structure in the transformational leadership (TFL) process. We examine organizational centralization, formalization, and size as antecedents of an organization's TFL climate, and as moderators of the relationship between TFL climate and productive organizational energy (POE). Hypotheses are tested using a sample of 125 organizations. Results show that both the centralization and size of an organization are negatively related to its TFL climate, whereas formalization has a positive association. Further, while there is a positive linkage between TFL climate and POE, both centralization and formalization moderate this relationship. The TFL climate-POE linkage is diminished under conditions of high centralization, and it is enhanced under conditions of high formalization. These findings point to the role of organizational structure as a boundary condition for both the occurrence and the effectiveness of TFL in organizations. The paper concludes by acknowledging its limitations and discussing its implications for practice and research. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Arguments have been raised, that i-deals do not operate in a social vacuum but that they affect coworkers and organizations. This study extends existing literature and addresses the questions of ho...

Guided by general climate models of organizational effectiveness and drawing from affective events theory and situational strength theory, we develop a comprehensive organizational-level model of t...