A Conceptual Framework of How Meeting Mindsets Shape and Are Shaped by Leader–Follower Interactions in Meetings

In this conceptual paper, we define a person's meeting mindset as the individual belief that meetings represent opportunities to realize goals falling into one of three categories: personal, relational, and collective. We propose that in alignment with their respective meeting mindsets, managers use specific leadership claiming behaviors in team meetings and express these behaviors in alignment with the meeting setting (virtual or face-to-face) and their prior experiences with their employees. Employees’ responses, however, are also influenced by their meeting mindsets, the meeting setting, and prior experiences with their managers. The interplay between managers’ leadership claiming behavior and their employees’ responses shapes leader–follower relations. Embedded in the team context, the emerging leader–follower relations impact the meaning of meetings. We outline match/mismatch combinations of manager–employee meeting mindsets and discuss the influence that a manager and employee can have on each other's meeting mindset through their behavior in a meeting. Plain Language Summary Have you ever had the experience of entering a team meeting and quickly realizing that your idea of how the meeting conversation should be approached did not align with your boss's understanding of the meeting purpose? This is indeed a common experience in meetings between managers and their employees. While we understand much about the communication dynamics that occur in meetings, we know less about what motivates people to communicate in certain ways in meetings. In this conceptual paper, we classify people's understanding of meetings as being driven by one of three purposes: [1] to strategically position and promote themselves (which reflects a personal meeting mindset), [2] to shape collaborations and to ensure reciprocation (which reflects a relational meeting mindset), or [3] to strengthen the team identity and increase the willingness to go the extra mile for the team (which reflects a collective meeting mindset). Meeting mindsets shape how people enact their leader or follower role in meetings—that is, how a manager exhibits leadership and how employees react. However, managers’ and employees’ meeting mindsets may not necessarily match, which can trigger tensions and may ultimately change the way in which managers or employees define the meaning of meetings. Our research helps managers to comprehend the reasoning behind their own and other people's meeting behavior and may promote reflection on one's leadership approach, particularly in a team meeting context. It can also help employees to grasp the power they can have in terms of actively shaping their managers’ meeting mindsets.

Implicit motives as the missing link between visionary leadership, approach and avoidance motivation, and vision pursuit

An unresolved question in visionary leadership research is, why must visions be high in imagery to cause affective reactions and be motivationally effective? Research in motivation psychology has shown that pictorial cues arouse implicit motives. Thus, pictorial cues from vision-induced imagery should arouse a follower’s implicit motives just like a real image. Hence, our fundamental proposition is that follower implicit motives and follower approach motivation serially mediate the relationship between leader vision and followers’ vision pursuit. We also examine the case of negative leader visions, with the central propositions that a negative leader vision arouses a follower’s implicit fear motives and that the follower’s implicit fear motives and follower avoidance motivation serially mediate the relationship between negative leader vision and the follower’s fear-related behaviors. Lastly, we assert that multiple implicit follower motives aroused by a multithematic leader vision exert additive as well as interaction effects on the follower’s vision pursuit.

The dynamic threshold model of bandwagon innovations: Role of organizational attention and legitimacy

Innovations are not always adopted due to their expected economic impact but often due to bandwagon pressure. Fueled by economic uncertainty, these “bandwagon innovations” are adopted once the bandwagon pressure reaches a certain threshold. Existing literature, however, has not examined this threshold’s sources nor considered the effect of a bandwagon adoption decision on threshold. Therefore, building on current knowledge about the bandwagon effect, organizational attention, and legitimacy, this paper develops a theoretical model to help understand the factors affecting threshold and making organizations more or less likely to adopt bandwagon innovations. The novel dynamic threshold model proposed here explains how attention to social or economic factors can affect an organization’s threshold. The model shows that the threshold may change such that an organization may be more likely to adopt a bandwagon innovation after prior resistance or resist one after prior adoption. Implications for organizational decision-makers and future research avenues are also discussed.

The team cohesion-performance relationship: A meta-analysis exploring measurement approaches and the changing team landscape

Team cohesion is an important antecedent of team performance, but our understanding of this relationship is mired by inconsistencies in how cohesion has been conceptualized and measured. The nature of teams is also changing, and the effect of this change is unclear. By meta-analyzing the cohesion-performance relationship ( k = 195, n = 12,023), examining measurement moderators, and distinguishing modern and traditional team characteristics, we uncovered various insights. First, the cohesion-performance relationship varies based on degree of proximity. More proximal measures –task cohesion, referent-shift, and behaviorally-focused– show stronger relationships compared to social cohesion, direct consensus, and attitudinally-focused, which are more distal. Differences are more pronounced when performance metrics are also distal. Second, group pride is more predictive than expected. Third, the cohesion-performance relationship and predictive capacity of different measures are changing in modern contexts, but findings pertaining to optimal measurement approaches largely generalized. Lastly, important nuances across modern characteristics warrant attention in research and practice. Plain Language Summary Team cohesion is an important antecedent of team performance, but our understanding of this relationship is mired by inconsistencies in how cohesion has been conceptualized and measured. The nature of teams has also changed over time, and the effect of this change is unclear. By meta-analyzing the cohesion-performance relationship ( k = 195, n = 12,023), examining measurement moderators, and distinguishing between modern and traditional team characteristics, we uncovered various insights for both research and practice. First, the cohesion-performance relationship varies based on degree of proximity. Measures that are more proximal to what a team does – those assessing task cohesion, utilizing referent shift items, and capturing behavioral manifestations of cohesion – show stronger relationships with performance compared to those assessing social cohesion, utilizing direct consensus items, and capturing attitudinal manifestations of cohesion, which are more distal. These differences are more pronounced when performance metrics are also more distal. Second, despite being understudied, the group pride-performance relationship was stronger than expected. Third, modern team characteristics are changing both the overall cohesion-performance relationship and the predictive capacity of different measurement approaches, but findings pertaining to the most optimal measurement approaches largely generalized in that these approaches were less susceptible to the influence of modern characteristics. However, in some contexts, distal cohesion metrics are just as predictive as their more proximal counterparts. Lastly, there are important nuances across different characteristics of modern teams that warrant additional research attention and should be considered in practice. Overall, findings greatly advance science and practice pertaining to the team cohesion-performance relationship.

Critical positions: Situating critical perspectives in work and organizational psychology

This paper argues that critical perspectives have constituted a marginal yet continued presence in work and organizational (W-O) psychology and calls for a reflexive taking stock of these perspectives to ground a critical research agenda. We argue that critical W-O psychology has been positioned between a psychology literature with limited development of critical perspectives, and an emergent critical management literature that has allowed their selective development. This in-between position has allowed critical W-O psychology to persist, albeit in a fragmented form, while limiting its potential for theoretical and applied impact. We use this diagnosis to reflect on how critical perspectives can best develop from within W-O psychology. We end with a call for developing a critical movement unique to the current historical moment, drawing upon without repeating the experiences of its home disciplines, in a future oriented and reflexive psychology research agenda.

A balanced view of mindfulness at work

Mindfulness has grown from an obscure subject to an immensely popular topic that is associated with numerous performance, health, and well-being benefits in organizations. However, this growth in popularity has generated a number of criticisms of mindfulness and a rather piecemeal approach to organizational research and practice on the subject. To advance both investigation and application, the present paper applies The Balance Framework to serve as an integrative scaffolding for considering mindfulness in organizations, helping to address some of the criticisms leveled against it. The Balance Framework specifies five forms of balance: 1) balance as tempered view, 2) balance as mid-range, 3) balance as complementarity, 4) balance as contextual sensitivity, and 5) balance among different levels of consciousness. Each form is applied to mindfulness at work with a discussion of relevant conceptual issues in addition to implications for research and practice. Plain Language Summary In order to appreciate the value of mindfulness at work researchers and practitioners might want to consider both the benefits and potential drawbacks of mindfulness. This paper presents a discussion of both the advantages and possible disadvantages of mindfulness at work organized in terms of the five dimensions of an organizing structure called The Balance Framework.

A dynamic reframing of the social/personal identity dichotomy

For decades, scholars in organizational and social psychology have distinguished between two types of identity: social and personal. To what extent, though, is this dichotomy useful for understanding identities and their dynamics, and might a different approach facilitate deeper insight? Such are the guiding questions of this article. I begin by reviewing framings of the social/personal identity dichotomy in organizational psychology, and tracing its origins and evolution in social psychology. I then evaluate the strengths and limitations of this dichotomy as a tool for understanding identities. In an attempt to retain the dichotomy’s strengths and overcome its limitations, I present a modified conceptualization of the social and personal dimensions of identity, one that defines these dimensions based on psychological experience (not identity content), and treats them as two independent continua (not two levels of a dichotomy, or opposing ends of a continuum) that any given identity varies along across contexts. Plain language summary A single person can identify with lots of different aspects of their life: their family, community, job, and hobbies, to name but a few. In the same way it helps to group different items in a shop into sections, it can be helpful to group the different identities available to people into categories. And for a long time, this is what researchers have done: calling certain identities “social identities” if based on things like race and culture, and “personal identities” if based on things like traits and habits. In this paper, I explain that for various reasons, this might not be the most accurate way of mapping identities. Instead of categorizing them based on where they come from, I suggest it’s more helpful to focus on how identities actually make people feel, and how these feelings change from one moment to the next. I also point out that many identities can make someone feel like a unique person and part of a broader group at the same time. For this reason, it’s best to think of the “social” and “personal” parts of an identity not as opposites—but simply different aspects of the same thing.

From shared climate to personal ecosystems: Why some people create unique environments

Much of organizational behavior research looks at how social context influences individuals’ experiences and behaviors. We add to this view by arguing that some individuals create their own contexts, and do so in a way that follows them across dyads, groups, and organizations. We call these individual-specific contexts “personal ecosystems,” and propose that they are created when an actor consistently engages in visible behaviors that trigger similar and visible reactions across targets of that behavior. We attribute the formation of personal ecosystems to social inertia, and identify three individual traits that increase the likelihood that an individual’s behavior is consistent across people and situations: low self-monitoring, implicit beliefs, and low levels of emotional intelligence. Finally, we discuss why understanding personal ecosystems is important for organizations, identify managerial implications of this phenomenon, and strategies for diminishing the likelihood of having personal ecosystems.

Endurance in extreme work environments

Extreme work environments are inherently stressful and involve challenging working and living conditions. In contexts ranging from space exploration to disaster response, people must sustain performance under pressure, and function with limited resources. In this paper we develop the concept of endurance for extreme work environments, which we define as the capacity to sustain performance at high levels for safe and effective operations over extended durations (e.g., a mission, operation, deployment, or expedition). We integrate diverse streams of literature (e.g., work stress, recovery, and sleep) to describe endurance in terms of short- and long-term energy management processes as individuals interact with their work-life system (i.e. work, non-work, and sleep environment). We conclude with theoretical and practical implications for a better understanding of endurance, such as considering multiple time perspectives, and the role that researchers, practitioners, and organizations can play in optimizing endurance in the field.

Beyond intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: A meta-analysis on self-determination theory’s multidimensional conceptualization of work motivation

This meta-analysis aims to shed light on the added value of the complex multidimensional view on motivation of Self-determination theory (SDT). We assess the unique and incremental validity of each of SDT’s types of motivation in predicting organizational behavior, and examine SDT’s core proposition that increasing self-determined types of motivation should have increasingly positive outcomes. Meta-analytic findings (124 samples) support SDT, but also adds precision to its predictions: Intrinsic motivation is the most important type of motivation for employee well-being, attitudes and behavior, yet identified regulation is more powerful in predicting performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, introjection has both positive and negative consequences, while external regulation has limited associations with employee behavior and has well-being costs. Amotivation only has negative consequences. We address conceptual and methodological implications arising from this research and exemplify how these results may inform and clarify lingering issues in the literature on employee motivation.